


Their Hearts Said

by Anogete



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Creampie, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Oral Sex, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Semi-Public Sex, Shower Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2019-07-11 06:33:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 81,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15966692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anogete/pseuds/Anogete
Summary: Steve is coping with the deaths of half the universe by not dealing with it at all.  Darcy is desperately searching for Thor in hopes he can shed some light on what happened and why all of her family, including her best friend Jane, disappeared a few months ago.  When their paths cross, they try to find something other than numbness in each other.  Maybe wild sex in the stairwell and a public bathroom isn't the healthiest way of dealing with trauma, but it's all they're capable of while trying to bring back everyone they lost.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, readers! Welcome back! (Or welcome for the first time if this is the first fic of mine you've found.)
> 
> What do I have here? Sixteen chapters, about 80,000 words, and chapters alternating Steve's and Darcy's perspectives. The fic begins about three months after the Battle of Wakanda and covers just over two months. It'll be a bit tough at first because Steve is not in a great place and Darcy is feeling very lonely. However, I assure you that I will deliver a happy ending. In fact, I'm going to fix pretty much all the shitty deaths that occurred in Infinity War. That wasn't really my intention when I set out to write this fic, but I couldn't seem to stop myself once I got going.
> 
> The sex is explicit and often. It's the basis for the relationship between Steve and Darcy at first, so if you're not a fan of the Explicit rating or of casual sex between people who don't love (or even know) each other, you should hit that back button. There will be happiness and love later, but for now, we're just getting by with a numb Steve and a lonely Darcy.
> 
> The song lyrics at the beginning of each chapter are from my personal playlist of songs that inspired or set the mood for scenes/chapters. I'll provide a playlist later if you're interested. The title comes from a line in a song called Dixie Rothko by St. Paul and the Broken Bones. It's a lovely song that spoke to me as I dug further into writing this piece. If you're looking for good music, I highly recommend that song and anything the band has done.
> 
> If you're new to me, I assure you the fic is complete. I'm editing as I post, which means I can promise you at least one chapter per day. I may post the last two chapters on the same day. Subscribe or check back daily for your fix over the next two weeks.
> 
> Thank you, thank you, thank you to [Bulmaveg Otaku](http://bulmavegotaku.tumblr.com/) and [chocolategate](https://chocolategate.tumblr.com/) for their excellent beta skills, listening to me talk this plot out, and for the speedy turn-around time.
> 
> I love feedback. As with most authors, it feeds my muse. Comments here or messages on Tumblr (anogete) are cherished. You can also email me at anogete527@yahoo.com with happy comments or constructive criticism. Let me know what you think. I hope you enjoy the ride!

> _”I tried to drink it away. I tried to put one in the air. I tried to dance it away. I tried to change it with my hair.” - Solange (Cranes in the Sky)_

He never took the same route twice. Making a concerted effort not to fall into a routine and retrace his steps from the day before was difficult, but a blessing in disguise. With his mind on avoiding the streets he’d taken recently, he couldn’t dwell on the world around him as it fell apart at the seams. Things had gotten better over the past eight weeks that he’d been running the streets of New York City, but they weren’t the same. Trash was still piled up in alleys and even blocking sidewalks in some areas. Cars still sat abandoned, though the city was trying to tow them. Infrastructure was difficult when half the people who made the city and the world run were gone. Life was hard, period.

Steve kept his pace much slower than he was capable of because he didn’t want his identity known. This was also why he never took the same route twice. He didn’t want some reporter catching wind that Captain America was taking a morning jog right around sunrise each day when he damn well should be trying to save the world. Steve didn’t know how to save the world. He’d tried, and he’d failed.

The survivors—Natasha, Clint, Bruce, Thor, and even Tony when he’d finally found his way back three weeks after this hell had begun—were still looking for a fix, an angle, some hope that what had happened could be fixed. The raccoon who insisted on being called Rocket and a moody woman who had more mechanical parts on her than should be possible were helping, but they were volatile and Steve didn’t really trust either of them.

His feet hit the sidewalk rhythmically. Sometimes he let them slap hard against the pavement, even though he knew it was poor form. The sound was satisfying, hypnotic. With the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up over his head and the beard on his face, he was almost invisible to the survivors who seemed lost as they tried to pick up their old routines after three months of this hell. He was invisible as long as he didn’t push himself and run as fast as he was capable. So, instead, Steve played the long game and used distance to wear himself down. He started at three o’clock in the morning and looped around the city, trying to avoid the streets he’d run the day before. By the time his legs were fatigued, it was well past nine in the morning.

It was eight-thirty now, or at least that’s what the watch Stark had guilted him into wearing said. Tony had claimed the watch was for communication during emergency situations. Steve didn’t have the heart to tell him that it was all over now. The emergency had come and gone; they’d lost everything. The end. Tony was obsessed or possessed or both; he had tunnel vision for a solution that would take it all back. Steve was a little more realistic. Or maybe he was jaded, beaten, useless. He was spent. Nothing left in the gas tank, he thought as he turned the corner and came at Stark Tower from the back, slipping down an alley so he could enter through the loading dock tucked away in the shadows of these behemoth buildings.

The place should have been bustling with activity, with people on their way to work. It felt almost deserted, like more than half the people had been lost in that single moment when he’d failed to stop Thanos from destroying so many lives, not just the ones who vanished. Steve often wished he’d been one of those to go, especially if he could trade his life for someone else’s. He thought about that late at night more than he was willing to admit. It would have been better that way because he was useless now. He wasn’t a help with the science, and there was no army to fight, no monsters to keep at bay. The world felt empty, and he felt like a ghost, half gone already.

He ran the heel of his hand over the sweat that had gathered on his brow and weaved his way through a couple pallets of boxes. The two guards on duty nodded at him before returning to their business. Steve often wondered if they thought he was a joke or a failure. He considered that this morning as he stepped over to the service elevator and pressed the button to go up. The light showed red for a moment before his fingerprint registered and flipped it over to green.

“No! Let me _in_! I need to see him!”

Steve looked at the floor and swallowed his anxiety over the screaming coming from the lobby just beyond the steel door.

“Please! _Please_ , go get him. Tell him it’s Darcy Lewis. He _knows_ me. I swear he knows me.”

Her voice had taken on a pleading, broken quality that made his heart ache. She’d lost someone just like everyone else. He wondered who she was looking for and why the security guards wouldn’t let her enter the building. Maybe the trauma had pushed her over the edge.

“Get your fucking hands off me! I’m serious, dude! Go get Thor. He’s going to be so pissed off that you— Hey! Stop! No!”

One of the guards raised his voice and said, “Ma’am, we’re going to call the police again. They told you last time that you’d be thrown in jail for—”

“I don’t care. Throw me in jail. I need to see him! I need to tell him something. Stop! Let go, you asshole.”

Thor? Was she delusional? Her voice had a desperation to it that tugged at his heart. Steve watched the doors of the service elevator open. He should just go upstairs and take a shower and mind his own business. The woman in the lobby had likely been driven mad by what had happened. If she really knew Thor, then she wouldn’t be barging into the lobby of Tony Stark’s building.

“Thor! Thor, you motherfucker, get down here right now! It’s about Jane!”

Jane. Hadn’t that been the woman Thor was in love with? Steve watched the doors of the elevator shut as he sighed in resignation. Who was he kidding? He couldn’t look away even if he tried. Carefully, he pushed open the door and cast his gaze over the lobby. It was unnerving how empty it looked at this time of day. Normally, it would have been filled with people in suits with briefcases and work to do. Instead, it was occupied by less than ten people, three of who were trying to detain a young woman with dark brown hair and wild, red-rimmed eyes.

“Thor!” she screamed again. “Please, just call him. _Please_.” Now she was appealing to the guard who was on the phone. He likely wasn’t on the phone with Thor. Thor didn’t know how to operate a phone. Steve suspected he was making good on their promise to call the cops.

“What’s going on here?” Steve said, walking over to the cluster of three guards around her.

One of the guards recognized him even with the hood up. Steve watched the man’s back straighten when he said, “She’s been coming in the past three days making a scene, demanding access to Thor. She’s delusional, sir. She’s—”

“I’m not fucking delusional, you asshat! Just tell him it’s Darcy Lewis. He knows me.”

Steve pushed his hood back and looked at her. She looked right back, defiance in her eyes. If she was crazy, then she was disturbingly good at appearing coherent. “Have you asked Thor?” He directed the question at the guard holding the phone.

The guard sputtered before saying, “Well, _no_. If she knew him then, she’d have security clearances. She says she’s lost her family and her friend. Sir, she’s just here to ask for help.”

Help they couldn’t give, Steve thought. Instead of admitting it, he sighed and said, “Ms.—uh—Ms. Lewis, why—”

“Darcy,” she said, her muscles relaxing as the guards loosened their grip.

“Darcy,” Steve repeated after her. “Have a seat. I’ll find Thor and pass your message along to him.”

“ _Thank you_ ,” she said, relief in her voice.

Steve felt bad for the woman. She looked like she’d been through the same hell he had. That they all had, he corrected himself. He wasn’t special; he was just broken. “If he doesn’t come down here, then you need to leave and not come back. Is that understood?”

“Sure,” she said, “but he’ll come down here.”

She seemed very sure of herself. Maybe she did know Thor after all.

* * *

As it turned out, that little niggling suspicion in the back of his mind was right. Thor did indeed know Darcy Lewis. When Steve had finally tracked him down in Stark’s conference room—which looked more like a disastrous war room now—Thor had nearly pushed him out of the way to get down to the lobby. For a moment, Steve almost went back to his rooms to shower, but for the first time in weeks, he was feeling something other than the weight of grief and hopelessness.

He rode the elevator down with a very agitated Thor, who had taken to pacing the small box they were in. “Who is she?”

“A good friend to my beloved Jane,” Thor replied, his voice rough and emotional. “What did she say? Was Jane with her?”

Steve felt that twist in his gut. Jane wasn’t with her, and Steve knew why. He opened his mouth to tell Thor, but the elevator door opened and the blonde god was out the door and frantically sweeping the lobby with his eyes.

“Thor!” the young brunette said, standing up from the chair she’d been sitting in, twisting her hands together like she was nervous.

“Darcy? Are you well?” Thor asked, striding across the nearly empty lobby. The people who were there were turning their heads to watch the drama. The security guards looked from Thor to Steve and back again. They all looked fearful for their jobs and lives after turning the woman away twice before.

“No, I’m not well,” she said. “Jane… she’s… gone. I can’t find my parents or my brother. I—I think they’re gone, too. I don’t understand what’s happening. What _happened_?”

Steve cringed as Thor’s steady strides over to her faltered. “Jane’s gone?”

The woman was crying now. “She—she was standing there and, and, and… She was standing there and then she was gone. She fell apart like ashes. _What happened_?”

Thor bent over at the waist, his hands on his knees. Steve knew his friend had looked for Jane shortly after _it_ happened, but couldn’t locate her. The Earth wasn’t as big as the universe, but it was still pretty damn big and if someone didn’t really want to be found, it wasn’t too hard to stay off the radar. He knew Thor’s relationship with Jane had ended and not very happily or amicably. He knew Thor was still heartbroken, and now it was even worse because Thor had been operating under the assumption that Jane was alive out there in some corner of the world still doing her work.

“I—I don’t understand. My parents are gone. My brother is missing. I think he’s gone, too. The… The TV won’t… They’re not _saying_ anything.” Thor was between him and the woman, but he was bent over and sucking in air as the message about Jane sunk in. Darcy’s eyes locked with Steve’s over Thor’s back. “ _What happened_?”

Steve’s throat was tight. He’d thought he was over feeling this way. Numbness had set in over the past few weeks and the sick feeling in his stomach was surprising and unwelcome. He shook his head but didn’t know how to put into words what had happened. It was too much, too big for a sentence or two.

“We failed,” Thor said, his voice thick with grief. When he stood up straight again, he blocked Darcy from Steve’s view. “I’ll have his head, Darcy. I will have his head for taking Jane away from this world she loved so dearly.”

“Who?” Darcy asked. “I don’t understand. No one understands. Why would someone do this? How could someone do this?”

“Come with me. You’ll stay with us here,” Thor said, covering the final few feet to Darcy and wrapping an arm around her shoulders. She looked defeated and so sad. Steve felt his stomach twist when her eyes met his again.

“Can we fix this?” she asked. Steve didn’t know if she was talking to Thor or him. Probably Thor. He was the one she’d come here looking for, the one she’d screamed her head off for in the lobby of the building. Her choice of wording was strange. _We_. Can _we_ fix this? Like she was part of the team. Like she was taking some of the blame. Steve clenched his teeth together and turned away.

Thor maneuvered Darcy past Steve and toward the elevator. “Let us find a place where we can talk. Here is not the place.”

She glanced over her shoulder at him, and Steve’s felt his stomach twist again, guilt and sadness coursing through his veins. “Thank you,” she said softly before turning back toward the elevators.

* * *

She looked shell-shocked. Her eyes were wide, but there was no recognition in them, just a distance that was all-too-familiar to Steve. That distance and numbness had set in over the past few weeks. He’d accepted it as his life. They’d failed and this was the world now. He didn’t understand how Tony could still have the energy to search for a solution when it was obvious those who were gone were… gone. They weren’t coming back. All they could hope for now was revenge on the monster who had taken them.

He stood in the corner, one shoulder pressed against the wall and his arms folded. She was sitting at the conference table in the hellish room they’d spent most of their time in since they’d returned from Wakanda. Thor was holding her hand, but she didn’t seem to notice. It was a lot to take in. It had taken nearly three weeks after the incident—that’s what the talking heads were calling it—for the televisions to start working again. There were three channels up, and all of them were airing news programs for most of the day, though they went off the air at night. The multi-colored bars that took over the screen around ten o’clock at night were eerie and depressing.

The people who really knew what happened were few; almost all of them were residing in Stark Tower. Most of the world just knew a large portion of the population disappeared right in front of their eyes. Steve suspected in a few months they would try to do a census and figure out how many they lost. He knew they’d find it was fifty percent. Bruce and Natasha met with a Congressional Committee and informed them of what had occurred in Wakanda. Tony had met with them a week later to answer questions about what happened on a distant planet called Titan. Steve couldn’t bring himself to go, though.

The Congressional Committee and the President decided the truth would cause mass panic. People were already speculating on when another incident would happen. But Steve knew that the tenuous control the remaining authorities had over the remaining population could be tipped into anarchy if people knew the truth—that a monster had obtained a weapon so powerful he could kill the masses with just a snap of his fingers. Nevermind that the gauntlet had been irreparably damaged, Steve knew Thanos could find a way to continue the destruction if he wanted. Plus, people were looking for a reason to panic. Knowing an alien being held so much power, had killed half of their loved ones--well, that was enough to send everyone over the edge.

“Who’s this?” Tony asked, stopping in the doorway. He looked horrible. His beard had gotten almost as out of control as Steve’s. He hadn’t had a shower in three days. Steve knew because Bruce had forced Tony to take one on Monday. He had a cup of coffee in his hands because he’d mostly been living off caffeine and sugar. He’s killing himself, Steve thought, looking at the dark circles under Tony’s eyes. If Pepper were around, then maybe it would be different, but she was gone. Gone with the rest of them.

Darcy didn’t answer, though she did look up at Tony with those wide, blue eyes like she didn’t even see him. Thor probably shouldn’t have told her everything. The truth was terrible and so meaningless, such a waste.

“This is Darcy Lewis. She is a friend of Jane’s. She’s come to bring me word of Jane and Erik Selvig,” Thor said.

“Jane's dead, then.” Tony’s voice was flat.

Thor’s jaw tightened. For a moment, Steve thought he’d have to intervene and break up a fight between the two men. Thor pulled himself together and said, “She’s gone,” in a cold voice. “All the more reason for us to work harder. We must find an answer. The damage Thanos has wrought cannot stand.”

Tony’s shoulders sagged. “You need a place to stay, kid?”

“I’m not a kid.” It was the first thing she’d said since Thor had started talking. She was probably in shock.

“Yeah, yeah,” Tony said, waving away her protest. “You need a place to stay?”

“I—I don’t know. I could… I was going to go back to my parents’ house, but…”

“You can stay with me, Darcy,” Thor told her.

“I don’t want to go back to Virginia,” she whispered.

Thor squeezed her hand. “You can stay with me.”

“I’ll find her a room. We’ve got plenty of space,” Tony said before turning around and leaving.

* * *

The mood was morose, but it had been since _the incident_. Steve was sitting in an armchair with a glass of bourbon held loosely in a hand that was resting on his knee. Floor to ceiling windows to his right afforded him a view of the city. It was unusually dark. Losing half its inhabitants had dulled the glow of lights. Steve wondered if things would ever be back to the way they were. He wondered what Bucky had felt as he fell apart and was swept away by the wind. No, things would never be back to the way they were. This was not something you could recover from.

Tony was drunk. Sloppy drunk and probably a couple more drinks from vomiting or passing out or both. Natasha was trying to be his keeper or his parent by taking away his drink, but Tony wasn’t having it. Clint was back in his room, playing video games with his daughter. She’d survived but the other kids and Clint’s wife were gone. They should be glad the girl survived. Clint was glad, but all Steve could focus on were the ones who were gone. Bucky and Wanda and Vision and T’Challa and Fury and Maria and so many others.

The racoon—who claimed his name was Rocket—was egging Tony on. He was a spiteful little thing who didn’t have much good to say about anyone or anything, but he and Tony got on famously. If you considered constant snarking and friendly annoyance as such. Steve didn’t mind him much after he got over the fact that he was, well, a racoon who could talk. The moody woman who had returned to Earth with Tony was nowhere to be seen. Steve suspected she was back in her room; she tended to keep to herself. He was tempted to leave as well, but being around other voices sometimes made it easier. Sitting on his couch and staring at the multi-colored bars of the television station that had gone off the air an hour earlier was not appealing.

Thor and Bruce were seated in another armchair and at the end of the couch. They were deep in conversation about something that had happened on Sakaar, a world they said they’d been to just before shit had hit the fan with Thanos. Steve had seen plenty of things, but he couldn’t imagine a different world filled with aliens like that tree Thor had introduced him to.

Steve took a drink of the bourbon, savoring the way it burned all the way down his throat. It wouldn’t get him drunk, but it warmed him and tasted decent once he’d gotten used to the flavor. When he looked up, he saw her watching him from the other side of the couch. She’d been there for two days. The fiery woman who had called the guard downstairs a motherfucker wasn’t around anymore. The Darcy in her place was shell-shocked and quiet. Steve knew how she was feeling. He used to be motivated. He used to be a fighter. Now he sat in a room and despaired over the fact that the problem was insurmountable and unsolvable. People were dead and there was nothing he could do to turn back time.

She looked away when he caught her looking. Steve glanced down at her glass and found it empty. She’d been drinking rum and Coke. He opened his mouth to ask her if she wanted a refill, but nothing came out. She’d been there for two days, but he hadn’t said more than a few words to her. He didn’t have much to say to anyone anymore, but definitely not a pretty woman who looked just as heartbroken as he felt.

Tony had put her up in a small studio apartment two doors down from Nat and across the hall from Thor, whom she’d been shadowing since she arrived. That meant she was one floor below Steve. The first night she’d been in the Tower, Steve had sat on the foot of his bed and thought about what she was doing and what she was thinking. He’d wondered if she was crying or if she was worried. If she was lonely. He didn’t know her, but he didn’t want her to be lonely. It was good she had Thor; he treated her like a younger sister who he’d protect. She couldn’t have found someone better than him to be on her side and take care of her.

Steve sighed and knocked back the rest of his drink. “Hey,” he said, pushing himself out of the chair, “you want a refill?”

She looked up and shrugged before lifting the glass up for him to take. “Thanks,” she said.

“Rum and Coke?” he asked.

Darcy just nodded and slid her gaze back to the floor.

He made her drink at Tony’s bar in the corner of the room before he poured a splash of bourbon in his own glass. When Steve looked up at her again, she was nodding at Thor and smiling. There was something off in the smile. She was trying to be okay, but she wasn’t okay. Neither was he. Neither was anyone in the world. But she was trying and that was admirable. He’d stopped trying.

“That’s nice of you.”

Steve looked over his shoulder at Natasha. The woman was probably the only person who could sneak up on him like that. “Nice of me?” he asked.

“Getting her a drink,” Nat clarified.

Steve gave a non-committal hum as he put the lid back on the bottle of bourbon.

“Clint said she worked with Jane Foster and Erik Selvig. She’s been with them since Thor crash-landed in New Mexico.” When Steve didn’t reply, Nat continued with, “He said she seemed fun, that she tazed Thor when they first found him because he seemed crazy and dangerous.”

“Yeah,” Steve replied, picking up both the drinks and turning to look at Natasha.

“You okay, Steve?” Her expression was stern, but her eyes looked concerned.

“Yeah,” he murmured, looking away.

She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “You don’t seem okay. You’re not blaming yourself for all this, are you? Because that would be pretty stupid.”

“We failed. They’re dead because we didn’t get the job done.” It was a fact, unavoidable and terrible.

He saw her flinch at the words, but she recovered quickly. Someone who didn’t know her as well as he did wouldn’t have caught the moment. “We didn’t do this, Steve.”

“But we didn’t stop it.”

“Was it even possible to stop it? You were there. Steve, he had all the Stones. All of them. I don't know—”

“I don’t want to talk about this, Nat,” Steve said.

“You don’t want to talk about _anything_ ,” she replied.

“Ain’t nothing to talk about.”

Her eyes narrowed at him. “You’re not responsible for what happened, Steve. Get it through your thick skull and stop moping. Tony is killing himself and you’re just shutting down. We need you.”

“I can’t help. What can I do? There’s no one to fight. He’s gone. They’re gone with him.”

“Tony is trying to locate him. Nebula and Rocket are trying to help. If we can just find him, then we could find the Stones and—”

“He’s long gone, Nat. And even if we do find him—what then? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I want justice. I want _revenge_. But that ain’t bringing them back. They’re gone.”

She closed her eyes and inhaled a deep breath. “I know,” she said before a long exhale. “I know they’re gone.”

“Then we find him or not, it doesn’t matter.”

Natasha shook her head at him. “Never thought I’d see that day when you gave up, Steve.”

“I’m cutting my losses,” he replied, walking around the bar and looking back at her. “I can’t change it, can’t fix it, can’t make it right. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You just want to sit there and blame yourself,” she snapped back.

“Yeah. So what? You surprised?”

Nat huffed out a harsh breath of laughter. “No. No, I’m not surprised.”

Steve turned away and walked back over the couch. Darcy’s eyes were on him. She’d been watching his interaction with Natasha, though he didn’t know if she’d heard anything they’d said over the drone of conversation between Thor and Bruce.

He held out her drink and said, “Rum and coke.”

“Thanks,” she replied, reaching up and accepting it. She pinched the lip of the glass, careful not to touch his fingers.

Steve sighed and said, “You okay?

She shrugged and forced a smile. “Okay as can be. This… This doesn’t seem real. Feels like a nightmare.”

“Yeah, it does.”

“Who’d you lose?”

Her question was jarring. Steve opened his mouth, but he didn’t know how he could possibly give her an answer that would ever express who and what he’d lost. He shook his head at her and said, “Too many people.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. She took a drink and winced.

“Too strong?” he asked.

She smiled again and this time it almost reached her eyes. “Little bit.”

“Sorry about that.” He paused and added, “And you don’t gotta be sorry for what happened. None of it was your fault.”

Darcy took another drink. “Yeah, I know that. But I’m still sorry to hear you lost people. I heard you tell, uh, Natasha that you didn’t want to talk about something.” She shifted her eyes away for a moment, looking shy and sweet. When she lifted her gaze back up to him as he stood over her, she said, “I mean, you don’t know me or whatever, but if you ever want someone to talk to… Sometimes it’s easier for me to talk to people I don’t know. And you don’t know me, so…’ She laughed softly and shook her head. “I’m sorry. I… Never mind. I’m… whatever.”

Steve nodded and said, “Thanks for the offer, but I’m good. Talking doesn’t get you anywhere. You know?”

“Yeah. I guess,” she replied. “Thanks for, uh, getting Thor a couple days ago. I didn’t know what to do or how to reach him. I’m….”

When she didn’t finish her sentence, he raised his brows in question and encouragement. He wanted to hear the end of the statement. What was she? She was…?

“I’m alone now, I think. It was good to find him. My, uh, social circle shrank when I started working with Jane. Which is pretty regrettable now because… well, the more people you know, the more chance you have of not being alone.”

“The more people you know, the more people you lose,” he said.

Her smile was grim. “Yeah.”

Steve felt like shit as soon as the comment left his mouth and her response twisted his gut. He’d never been good at talking to women outside of business, and this was just another example of his inability to say the right thing at the right time. Instead of digging the hole deeper, he nodded at her and moved back to the bar. Tony was missing. Steve suspected he and Rocket had gone to the lab. They’d end up passing out from the booze. This was Tony’s cycle nowadays. He’d work like a maniac for two or three days, then drink himself under the table, be utterly useless for a day, and then start the process over again after he’d recovered from his hangover.

Steve sat with his back to the bar and sipped on the bourbon. She was sitting there on the end of the couch, looking lost and sad and lonely. Thor and Bruce tried to engage her; she’d try to respond, but couldn’t seem to drum up the will to carry on a conversation. She finished her drink and sat the empty glass on the coffee table. When she looked up, he caught her eye and nodded at her glass. She gave him a smile and shook her head. No refill. He felt a little disappointed. He wanted an excuse to go over and try again. He wanted to make her feel better. He wanted to talk to someone who hadn’t been there and wasn’t involved, even if he didn’t know what to say.

She slipped her gaze from Thor and looked up at him again as she absently chewed on her lower lip. Steve felt his stomach twist when she looked away and cast her gaze out the windows to her left. Talking to her was probably a bad idea. She was young and pretty and seemed like she needed someone. And he couldn’t be that. He didn’t know how to be there even on his best days, and these days were not even close to his best days.

She glanced over at him again. When she met his gaze, she diverted hers away quickly, acting guilty like she’d been caught. Why did she keep looking? And why did he _like_ it?


	2. Chapter 2

> _”I can feel your hand movin’ up my thighs. Skirt around my waist, wall against my face, I can feel your lips.” - Janet Jackson (Anytime, Anyplace)_

Darcy could hear the weariness in Thor’s voice. She could hear it in Bruce Banner’s voice, too. Bruce mentioned something Thor’s brother had done in the recent past. They both laughed fondly, but there was an underlying grief that she couldn’t block out. You couldn’t escape that tone nowadays. The entire world was grieving. With so many people gone, things had fallen apart. The stronger people were trying to put it back together. Darcy had been strong before she’d found Thor and realized that it was all so useless. Hopeless. Stupid. A fucking waste. She’d thought those who were gone were sucked into some alternate dimension or reality. She’d been operating under the assumption that those who were gone were still alive, and she’d been frantic to get help so she could get them back.

The truth was a blow. She felt numb and sick. Her stomach felt heavy, even though she’d only had a sandwich for lunch. Her brain was fuzzy from the alcohol. She was drunk, but not drunk enough. Not nearly drunk enough to cope with the deaths of the people who had been closest to her. Thor glanced over and smiled. He was trying to engage her, trying to pull her into the conversation, but she wasn’t really in the mood to talk. For the first time in her stupid life, she couldn’t think of anything to say. So, she gave him a thin smile back and nodded. It was enough to get him to turn his attention back to Bruce Banner.

Darcy looked at her empty glass on the coffee table and considered getting up to refill it. Captain America himself had wordlessly asked if she wanted him to refill it a few minutes before, but she’d shaken her head. Getting drunk wouldn’t take away the pain. In fact, it might make it worse. She wasn’t special, though. They were all in pain. Tony Stark seemed on the verge of working himself to death or overdosing on caffeine or alcohol. Or both. Captain America looked like he was dead inside already and it was just a matter of time before his body caught up.

She lifted her gaze and caught him watching her. He didn’t look away, though. His gaze was steady from across the room. His perfect ass was perched on the edge of a stool and one arm was thrown behind him to prop himself up with an elbow on the bar. He was in a pair of jeans with a white tee. Darcy would have been sweating over the way his muscles looked in the too-small shirt if she didn’t feel like the world had ended and she was just a ghost going through the motions.

He looked away as he took a drink, his gaze dropping to the floor and revealing how dark and lush his eyelashes were, even from a distance. He was perfection incarnate. Despite his dark mood and his lack of conversation, she still found a sense of peace when he was around. Underneath all that self-hatred or guilt or whatever it was he was holding onto, there was still a core of competence that made her feel like he could handle any situation. Well, except for _this_ situation. And, honestly, if The Avengers couldn’t handle a situation together, then maybe it really had been a losing battle that was rigged the entire time.

He glanced up and their gazes locked again. Darcy was the one to shift her eyes this time. He was intense. Nice and polite, but intense. He didn’t smile or show warmth to her like Thor and Bruce and Natasha. He didn’t joke with her like Tony or Clint or that strange raccoon named Rocket. He didn’t ignore her like the blue-skinned woman who hadn’t even introduced herself. Thor said her name was Nebula and she was there to help, but Darcy steered clear because she looked more than a little homicidal. No, Steve Rogers was just there. She suspected he’d do whatever she asked him, but he wouldn’t do it because he wanted to help her or because he liked her. He’d do it because he was going through the motions just like her. He was a ghost, too.

Darcy sighed and dared to lift her eyes up. He was still watching her but this time he looked away quickly. She watched his gaze shift and end up back on her. Except he wasn’t looking at her face. He seemed to be looking at her chest. Her suspicions were confirmed when he looked up to meet her gaze again.

Weird. She reached up with a hand to massage the back of her neck, rolling her head this way and that as she worked her muscles. When she opened her eyes, he was still watching her with that dispassionate look on his face. His tongue flicked out to quickly wet his lips. Darcy inhaled a deep breath and watched his eyes drop to look at her chest again. Her numb, broken mind suddenly started humming. What did that look even mean?

Thor reached over and tapped her leg. His mouth was moving, but she couldn’t seem to understand what he was saying. It was just a rumble of a voice. “What?” Darcy asked him.

“Coffee,” he told her. “This place is filled with wonderful beverages like coffee.”

Darcy forced a smile. “Yeah, coffee. It’s good.”

Thor nodded and turned back to Bruce. Darcy looked back over at Steve Rogers as he took another drink of from his nearly-empty glass. His eyes never left hers. God, he was fucking intense. Was that how he’d always been or was this the result of the mind-fuck he’d gotten when Thanos had come to town? It was like the guy didn’t give a shit anymore, but he was too polite to go off the deep end like some of the populace had done.

His jaw tensed up and the muscle there jumped. Darcy looked away, her eyes dropping to the crotch of his jeans. As soon as she realized she was staring, she skated her gaze right down to his feet and off to the side. Her cheeks felt a little hot. It was the booze, probably. Definitely the booze. Her cheeks always flushed when she’d had more than a glass of anything.

When she mustered the nerve to look at his face again, he was staring out the window at the dark sky. Darcy took the opportunity to lower her gaze again, tracing the contours of his chest underneath that tight shirt and eventually lingering at the silver buckle and brown leather belt situated right above his groin. His legs shifted a little further apart which made her eyes drop down to take in those muscular thighs barely contained by the denim. She hadn’t felt anything for the past two days as she walked around Stark Tower like a zombie. Now she could feel sweat on the back of her neck at the thought of what he looked like naked. So inappropriate, she chided herself. This is a fucking universe-wide crisis, people are gone, and she was imagining what Captain America looked like without clothes on. Stupid.

Darcy forced herself to look up at his face again and was mortified to find that he was watching her with a strange expression. That passive, blank look was gone and something else had taken its place, though she didn’t know if that was a good thing or bad thing. Steve’s lips parted and his gaze dropped to his own crotch before flicking back up to look at her. Yeah, she’d been caught. He didn’t seem to mind all that much, though. In fact, he looked intrigued as he tilted his head to the side and let his eyes move down her body. It was enough to make her want to squirm in her seat as her heartbeat kicked up a notch or three.

Steve turned around and sat his glass down before leaning back and resting his elbows on the bar top. He lifted his hips up just slightly and kicked a leg out. Darcy swallowed the saliva in her mouth as she thought about kneeling in front of him and sucking him off. As soon as the thought crossed her mind, she shoved it down and back to the recesses of her consciousness. That wasn’t appropriate. People were dead. She’d lost everyone. What the fuck was she even thinking? Was she drunker than she’d thought?

Her gaze flicked up to his face as he rolled his tongue out to wet his lips. He looked dangerous with that strange mixture of dullness and heat shifting and trading places in his eyes. He turned his head to one side and then the other like he was cracking his neck, but he never looked away from her as he did it.

Darcy inhaled deeply again and watched his gaze drop to the neckline of her shirt and then to her chest. This seemed like a silent pick-up from across the room, but it was hard to believe that Captain America was trying to get her to come over there and… do what? Talk to him? Fuck him? She wasn’t sure. Darcy didn’t know if she had much to say beyond what she’d already said.

He reached down with one of his hands. Her gaze followed to watch him adjust himself with a little lift of the hips and a carefully-placed palm. So, he didn’t want to talk. She swallowed again. What did she want to do, though? Not talk. Was he fucking serious? Did Captain America just pick up chicks like this? He didn’t seem the type. And she wasn’t exactly the type that got picked up by ridiculously gorgeous men. Although, his current state of being a barren emotional wasteland was probably more her speed. Besides, other than the hum of sexual attraction, she hadn’t felt much of anything other than sick to her stomach for the past two days.

Steve leaned back on his elbows again. She dragged her eyes up from his crotch to his face. His lips were still parted and his chest rose and fell with even breaths. There was a heat in his eyes that hadn’t been there a moment before. Darcy knew she was being obvious with the way she was staring and the way her face was flushed and the way she kept crossing and uncrossing her legs. He was onto her and making no secret of it.

He looked over his shoulder at the door behind him and then back at her. There was a question there, unspoken but clear. Did she want to play? Darcy told herself that it was the liquor she’d had tonight and the sadness that had settled into her soul since the motherfucking incident a few weeks ago. Really, though, she might have done the same thing if she’d been stone cold sober and happy as can be. Because who was she to turn down whatever _he_ wanted to give her?

She uncrossed her legs and pushed herself off the sofa she’d been sharing with Thor. The blonde god made to stand as well, but she held out her hand and insisted that she’d be okay walking back to her room alone. It was just one floor above. He let her go. Steve watched as she crossed in front of him. She half-expected him to reach out and grab her, but he didn’t. He sat there and didn’t move a muscle as she swallowed the anxiety and anticipation in her throat.

Walking out the door and into the empty hallway, Darcy wondered if she’d misread the situation. He hadn’t followed her. What was she even thinking, anyway? There was no damn way Steve Rogers was considering messing around with _her_. Feeling the emptiness and the disappointment set in, she made her way down the hall and turned the corner to the stairwell. As soon as she put her palm on the door to push it open, she felt hands on her hips. She tried to turn around, but his chest was against her back and one of his hands had come around to help her open the door. His larger body bumped against her as he all but forced her into the stairwell.

Before the door could shut, his mouth was on her neck and her heart was in her throat. So, he was serious after all. Darcy felt like she couldn’t breathe as she lifted an arm up and hooked it behind her to grab a fistful of his hair. She was barely able to slide her fingers through the strands before he turned her around and had her up against the wall of the small landing.

She opened her mouth to say something, though she had no idea what, but he never let her get anything out. His mouth covered hers as his rough hands hiked her skirt up and ripped her panties off. The sound of the seams at her hips giving way made her pull back and gasp.

Looking up, all she could see were his blue eyes and his pink lips in the sea of his wiry beard. Her arms were wrapped around his neck, but she had no recollection of putting them there. “What are you…” she started to ask, even though she knew exactly what he was doing. They were going to have sex up against the wall in the stairwell, and from the feel of his erection pressed between them, it was going to be really fucking good sex.

With just enough force to take her breath away, he grabbed a fistful of hair at the back of her head and tilted her face up so he could kiss her again. He was all tongue and teeth and heat, making Darcy groan into his mouth as she felt his free hand fumbling between them.

“You want this?” he asked through harsh breaths when he pulled his lips away from hers. He was still trying to unfasten the button and zipper on his faded jeans.

“Yes,” she replied immediately. “Fuck, yes.”

The muscles in his jaw flexed as he finished fiddling with his pants and slipped a hand between her thighs. Darcy was sure she had pulled out a few of his hairs when he pushed a couple fingers up into her. “Good,” he said, his voice more a growl than anything else.

“Oh god,” Darcy whispered, dropping her hands to clutch at his shoulders. It wouldn’t do to pull all his beautiful, blonde hair out. Because that’s what would happen if things got any better, and they were bound to get better if he planned on using that thing between his legs on her. She could feel it pressing against her abdomen.

His mouth was on her neck, lips moving up to press a kiss just behind her ear. She shivered at the sensation of his hot breath“You’re so wet,” he whispered.

Yeah, she probably was. They’d been eye fucking for a good fifteen or twenty minutes before he’d gotten her into this compromising position. She hadn’t had sex in months, and he was the hottest man she’d ever seen. Darcy inhaled a sharp breath and rocked her hips when his thumb brushed against her clit. “Mmm… Uhhh… Please,” she begged. God, was she already to the point of begging? It shouldn’t have been a surprise. He was Captain Fucking America.

Her plea seemed to tighten every muscle in his body. Roughly, he reached down with both hands and grabbed her ass, lifting her up so easily and pressing her back against the wall. With one hand still on her ass, he used the other to line himself up and sink into her. It took a few thrusts of his hips for her to take all of him. For a moment, Darcy couldn’t breathe as she adjusted to the size of him and the position she was in.

“Oh, fuck,” she muttered after a shaky inhale. Darcy wrapped her legs around his waist and locked her ankles at the small of his back, right above his perfect ass. He was relentless, using the muscles in his lower body and abs to push up into her again and again. The thrusts were fast and shallow at first, teasing and maybe even a little inexperienced—like it had been a while for him, too. That didn’t last long, though. Before Darcy knew it, she was using her shoulders against the wall as leverage to push her hips out and give him more room to work. Steve took advantage and fucked up into her with slower and harder strokes that went so deep, that ripped the breath from her lungs each time.

The hand on her ass was firm and unyielding. His other hand was on her waist, fingers curled around her and biting into the sensitive skin on her side while his thumb pressed into her stomach. God, even his hands were huge and just as capable as the dick he was fucking her with. Darcy’s head reeled as she let it fall back against the wall. She opened her eyes and looked at the endless stairs above them while Steve took the opportunity to run his tongue over her chest, dipping down into her cleavage just beneath the neckline of the shirt.

Darcy shut her eyes and concentrated on the way he felt. His rhythm and the way his cock opened her up were perfect, nudging her closer and closer toward a climax. His big hands made her feel small and weightless as he held her there and pushed into her soaked pussy. The sensation of his tongue lapping at the edges of her push-up bra was enough to get her inner thighs wet all by itself.

Unable to resist any longer, she moved one hand off his shoulder and down his chest. Steve’s muscles jumped as she trailed her fingertips over his abs. She felt him pull his mouth away from her tits and look down to where she’d buried her hand underneath the folds of her skirt so she could rub herself while he filled her up again and again. Even her own touch felt electric—more intense than it usually was when she was doing this all alone in her bed.

Steve exhaled a sharp breath and used the hand on her waist to lift the fabric of her skirt, bunching it up beneath her breasts. She watched his dumbstruck face as he watched her fingers on her clit. His lips were parted and his breathing was shallow, labored, on the cusp of hyperventilation. His brows drew together and Darcy realized he was on the edge of an orgasm. Maybe he was even holding it back for her, waiting for her to finish while he was still nailing her to the wall. The thought of Steven Rogers coming inside her sent Darcy off the deep end. Her back arched and she was only anchored to the Earth by two things—the crown of her head against the wall and his cock deep inside her. With a rough growl, bordering on a grunt, she came, the muscles that made up the walls of her pussy clenching down on his dick.

Steve didn’t seem prepared for it because while she was still riding out her orgasm, he faltered and groaned. His teeth clenched together as he tilted his head back to look at the stairs above them. “Fuck,” he muttered as he did just what she’d been fantasizing about and came inside her with short thrusts.

Darcy’s chest and shoulders were rising and falling with her heavy breaths, but so were his. He flattened her back against the wall and pressed his forehead to the concrete just beside her head. She left one hand on his shoulders and pressed the other to his chest as she listened to him regulate his breathing. She could feel the warmth of it on her neck and ear. Her legs were still wrapped around his waist but were starting to tremble from the strain and tension. Steve ran his free hand up her thigh until he got to her ass. Squeezing one cheek in each hand, he slowly let her slide down. The sensation of him pulling out of her made Darcy gasp.

“You okay?” he muttered, looking at the floor. She glanced down to see her black flats and his brown boots just a few inches apart.

“Yeah. I’m… good.”

“Good,” he murmured, letting go of her waist and letting the skirt fall back into place.

Darcy shifted her weight, feeling the slickness of his cum and her juices leaking out of her pussy and sliding down the inside of her thighs. What the fuck had she just done? This was insane. She’d just let Captain America fuck her in a public stairwell in Stark Tower just a few yards away from some of the other Avengers. Now she was all messy with the evidence and feeling just a little sore from what Steve was packing in his pants.

Darcy exhaled and pushed her hair back, catching a whiff of her own arousal on her fingertips.

“I should go,” Steve said, still unable to look at her.

“Yeah,” she agreed, feeling a little sick to her stomach.

He turned away for a moment before shifting back toward her. This time he looked up into her eyes. “You want me to walk you back to your room?” he asked. Those blue eyes were hard to read. He wasn’t giving her that blank look that she’d seen since arriving a couple days before, but he wasn’t looking like he really wanted to be standing around with her either.

“No, I’m okay. You can go.” She swallowed the emotion that was blocking up her throat and tried to keep herself under control. They were both just blowing off steam. They were both drunk. She’d done her share of stupid things while drunk; this was just another one. Just another stupid, drunk thing.

He nodded and turned away to take two steps over to the door.

Darcy smoothed her skirt down over her thighs and shook her head when the door opened. “He was just drunk. This was just because he was drunk,” she whispered under her breath like a mantra as she tried to maintain some semblance of order to her world.

When the door didn't click shut, she looked up to find him standing there, holding it open. His back was to her and his shoulders looked stiff. “I can't get drunk,” he murmured before stepping back into the hallway and letting the door close behind him.

“Oh,” Darcy said to the empty stairwell. Her ripped panties were lying on the floor a few feet away. She winced at the thought of someone else finding them lying there before snatching them up and taking the stairs up one floor to her room. She needed a shower and maybe about five more drinks to cope with what she’d just done.

* * *

She’d been taking birth control since she was eighteen years old. Ten long years of popping one of those little pills every single morning. Except, three months ago, everything had fallen apart and going to the pharmacy for her refill hadn’t even crossed her mind. Another thing that hadn’t crossed her mind was that she hadn’t taken a birth control pill for well over two months. It especially hadn’t crossed her fucking mind when Steven Rogers was shooting his load deep inside her while she was pinned between a rock-hard wall and his rock-hard body. Darcy wanted to murder herself for being so fucking careless.

Steve had been in the wind for the first few days. Actually, she was to blame, too. She’d spent two days in her room, unable to come out and show her face to the world. What if someone had heard them? These people had powers, abilities. Some of them were goddamn _spies_ , and she and Steve hadn’t exactly been discrete about fucking a few yards from Tony Stark’s lounge. Thor eventually forced her to come out and eat dinner with him and Natasha at a table for four in a small kitchen a floor below.

No one seemed to suspect anything, so she’d let herself relax and try to enjoy the company. Halfway through the dinner, Clint had walked in with his little girl trailing behind. Natasha had scooted over and shared her chair with the little girl while Clint took the empty chair. It had felt almost normal, almost like a family dinner. Except most of them didn’t have a family any longer.

Her first Steve sighting since the _encounter_ was about four days after. He walked into the lab in a pair of baggy sweats and a too-tight T-shirt while Darcy was watching Bruce fiddle with a machine that Tony was building. She didn’t know what it was supposed to do, but she didn’t get a chance to ask when the best sex she’d ever walked through the door. His eyes shot over to her immediately, and Darcy felt her entire body flush. What was he thinking? Had he searched the internet, too? Was he trying to figure out how long she needed to wait to take a pregnancy test? Did he think it was a mistake? Was he disgusted?

Steve’s eyes shifted away and swept the room before he walked out.

“What crawled up Rogers’ ass?” Tony asked, coming up behind Darcy and setting a mug of black coffee on the table.

“Same thing as all of us, I’d imagine,” Bruce replied in an even tone, never taking his focus from the machinery in front of him.

“How you doin’, kid?” Tony asked Darcy. She felt like she should be asking him, instead. The skin beneath his eyes was dark, almost bruised-looking. His gaze was almost as dead as Steve’s. Maybe it would have been if it weren’t for all the caffeine he drank every day. Right then, he looked like he was caffeinated enough to vibrate out of the room.

Darcy moved so he could step up next to Bruce. “I’m okay,” she’d replied.

“Well, at least that’s one of us,” Tony said.

She almost opened her mouth to tell him that she’d lied. She wasn’t good. She was terrible. Her family was gone. Her best friend was gone. Her _life_ was gone. She’d made a fool of herself and fucked Captain America in the stairwell a few days ago, and she’d done it in spectacular fashion since she had not insisted on protection. She was possibly pregnant. What a fucking disaster that would be. She’d have to lie, of course. She couldn’t bear to tell him or anyone else the truth. What would he even do?

Instead of saying anything, Darcy left and went back to her room to cry alone in her bed.

A week later, she walked five blocks to a small pharmacy that was open. Their shelves were pretty bare, but they did have two different pregnancy tests left. She’d bought one along with a can of Dr. Pepper. Darcy shoved the pregnancy test in the pocket of her cardigan and drank the Dr. Pepper on the way back to the building. She almost threw up in the alley before walking inside. Was that morning sickness? It wasn’t morning, though. It was dinnertime. The sky was a deep blue and the temperature was dropping fast. Maybe the nausea was just good old-fashioned anxiety over one of the biggest fuckups of her life. Potential fuckups, she corrected herself.

The internet said to wait until she missed her period, but she didn’t remember when it was supposed to be. The days all ran together now. She had to know what was going on; she couldn’t wait any longer.

Darcy went up to her room and peed on the white stick. Sitting it on the sink, she lowered herself onto the toilet seat and waited with her head between her knees. “Please be negative, please be negative, please be negative,” she whispered under her breath. After waiting the required amount of time, she snatched up the stick and examined the little window. One line. What did one line mean? That meant not pregnancy, right? Right? She fumbled for the box she’d discarded in the trash can to make sure she wasn’t remembering wrong.

Not pregnant. Darcy exhaled a breath and laughed softly. Not pregnant. For a brief moment, she felt weightless and euphoric with relief. A moment later, anxiety set in. What if the test was wrong? What if she’d taken it too soon?

She worried for three more days before she felt the familiar ache in her abdomen. Cramps, she thought, never happier to welcome the beginnings of her period. She went back to the pharmacy the next day and bought the last pack of pads the store had. The old man at the cash register promised they would be getting a shipment of merchandise the following week. Supply trains were slower now that half of everyone was gone. It was taking time to get things back on track. Darcy wanted normal, but she also didn’t want everything to go back to the way it was. Things _couldn’t_ go back, not with all those people just… gone.

However, she did welcome the normalcy of blood on the toilet paper when she peed that night. She unwrapped one of the too-large pads and affixed it to her underwear with actual pleasure. She’d dodged a big fucking bullet. She was not prepared to get knocked up with the world in shambles.

* * *

Darcy had stayed away from the get-togethers in the lounge since the encounter with Steve. She’d seen him around since then but hadn’t spoken to him. Besides a few lingering looks that made her body heat up, he seemed to avoid her. As much as Darcy knew it was for the best, it also made her feel like shit. He saw that night for exactly what it was: a big fucking mistake. She wondered if he was disgusted that he’d had sex with her. Not that Darcy didn’t think she was a catch, but over the past three months, she’d not really been at the top of her game considering the circumstances. Plus, he was Captain America. He could pull a way hotter chick than her. She wondered if he kept his hookups discrete like he’d kept theirs or if their encounter had been unusual for his perfect ass. Darcy’s opinion changed daily. Mostly, she thought he was a love ‘em and leave ‘em sort when he wasn’t in the same room as her. However, every time she saw him walk by with his distant gaze and stoic expression, she thought maybe it had just been a one-time thing that he had needed to get out of his system.

Over three weeks after the situation in the stairwell, she offered to watch Clint’s little girl while he had some drinks with everyone. At nine-thirty, she put the kid to bed after watching Madagascar. Clint walked through the door just before ten and crashed into his bed. Darcy liked Clint. He was a great guy and a great father. He was trying his level best to be okay for his little girl even though he’d lost two kids and his wife. He grumbled as Darcy pulled off his boots and tossed a blanket over him.

“Night, dad,” she told him before slipping out of his room and into the hallway.

After carefully closing the door, she turned around to see Steve Rogers standing a few yards away in front of what she could only assume was the door to his place. He was frozen, hand on the doorknob, as he watched her.

Darcy shifted from one foot to the other and cleared her throat. “Uh, hi,” she said, trying not to let her embarrassment get the best of her. Why couldn’t she have left two minutes earlier to avoid this painful situation? Fuck my life, she thought.


	3. Chapter 3

> _”I want someone badly, to burn in here with me. ‘Cause I cry all over madly. Don’t do anything, do it with me. I wanna know. Am I sure that I have your love.” - Jeff Buckley (I Want Someone Badly)_

She’d just walked out of Clint’s room. It was ten o’clock on a Friday night. A wave of mindless jealousy nearly knocked Steve off his feet. He jerked off every morning to the memory of her wrapped around his dick. Every damn morning. Seeing her walk out of some other guy’s room twisted his gut in ways he didn’t realize were possible anymore.

“Darcy,” he replied, trying to keep his voice level and his expression empty. He had no right to say anything or feel any kind of way about her. He’d been avoiding her for three weeks because he didn’t know how to be around her without _that_ happening again. It had been the only flare of feeling in his numb mind since right after the incident in which they’d failed to protect the planet. Or, according to Tony, the universe. Steve had a hard time wrapping his head around that one.

That night had been a mistake. She’d kept looking over at him and every single time he’d felt her gaze on him, Steve’s body had heated up. After weeks of feeling worthless and inept, the sensation had been addictive. So addictive, in fact, that he’d been reckless and horrible. He’d taunted her and pushed her into the stairwell. He’d ripped her white panities off and fucked her against the wall. It had been a mistake, but it had felt so damn good. The sound of her coming around him was tattooed in his brain forever. Everything in his mind was washed out in sepia tones, but she flared to life in a brilliant red, tucked away in the back of his brain.

Her breasts rose and fell as she inhaled and then exhaled a deep breath. “I was, uh, just watching Lila while Clint tried to relax in the lounge.” Darcy jabbed her thumb over her shoulder at the door behind her and gave him a nervous smile. “We watched Madagascar and then… and then Clint showed up and passed out on his bed. He’s, uh, an old man, I guess.” Darcy’s laughter was nervous as she added, “Didn’t make it past ten. Then again, I think Tony can drink everyone under the table. You know?”

Steve didn’t know what to say to make her stop talking. He felt guilty for treating her the way he had and that included the sex and his avoidance. He’d thought all these scars were scabbed over, but she’d somehow found a spot that was still raw, a spot he could still feel. “Darcy,” he said.

She closed her open mouth and pressed her lips together. Her gaze slid off to the side so she wasn't looking at him anymore. “Sorry,” she said. “Word vomit. Have a good night.”

“Darcy,” he repeated as she turned to walk in the opposite direction. He’d been avoiding the lounge, so he wasn’t sure if Clint had been there. There was a burning in the pit of his stomach that he knew wouldn’t go away until he knew for sure.

“What?” she said, turning around to look at him. There was tension in her voice.

“Are you and Clint…” He trailed off, unable to put his question out there like that. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Are you…”

Her eyebrows went up at the same moment her lips parted. “Banging?” she asked before laughing softly. “No. No, no, no. I was babysitting Lila. He’s passed out with all his clothes on. Weren’t you in the lounge with him?”

The way she seemed so shocked at the insinuation that she was sleeping with Clint allowed Steve to breathe a little easier. He was sick. He shouldn’t care what Darcy Lewis did. She wasn’t his girl. “I haven’t… I haven’t been there in a while.”

“Me neither,” she replied, worrying her hands. She was in a pair of jeans and an oversized white T-shirt with the name of some summer camp on the front. He wanted to undress her. He wanted to see what she’d look like in the middle of his bed.

Steve shook his head in an attempt to clear away the lascivious thoughts, but it was difficult. They seeped into his consciousness like dark tendrils of bad behavior. She’d wanted it that night, he thought, looking at her hands. He’d felt her come so hard. She’d been so wet. She’d _needed_ it just as much as he had.

“You regret it?”

“Regret what?” she asked, across the five or six yards that separated them. If she’d been a little closer, he might have reached out and touched that strand of hair that had escaped the clip holding the rest up off her neck.

He didn’t answer her question. It was a stupid question and they both knew it. There was only one thing between them.

Darcy inhaled deeply before saying, “I did at first.”

Her reply felt like a sucker punch to the gut. He hadn’t expected it. “Why?” Steve’s voice was rough.

Reaching up with one of her hands, she rubbed her eyes. “We didn’t use anything and…” Another inhale before she finished with, “And I ran out of pills.”

“What?” Steve asked, his mind tripping over her incomprehensible answer.

Darcy’s laugh was more than a little bitter. “Pills. Birth control. I thought I was pregnant.”

Oh. _Oh_. Steve hadn’t even considered that she might be worried about that. He’d thought she was upset about him using her. “I’m… I can’t do that, can’t father children.” He shrugged. “Side effect of the serum.”

Darcy swallowed. He could see the movement of her throat from yards away. “Good. That’s… good. Well, not good. I mean, I’m sorry for…”

“Don’t,” he interrupted. “Don’t apologize. It’s okay.” He went back to her original answer and said, “You did at first. What does that mean?”

“Huh?” she asked.

“You said you regretted what happened at first.”

“Yeah. I was freaking out. But… not now. I’m just, uh, embarrassed.”

“Why?”

She laughed. “Because… I don’t know, dude. You’re… you. I’m… not Captain America level hot, but I appreciate the, uh, the... “ Another laugh as she grappled for a word. “The orgasm?”

Heat flared in his chest as he thought about making her come again. He could stride down the hall and grab her hand. He could pull her into his place and make that little fantasy that involved her naked in the center of his bed come to life. He could taste her—all of her—this time. The thought made him feel light-headed. Steve closed his eyes and pressed his palm against his door until the surge of emotion passed. It was too much for him nowadays. He was too comfortable with the numbness.

When he opened his eyes, she was almost at the opposite end of the hall. She’s running away, he thought. Part of him wanted to go after her, but he knew it would be a very bad idea. She didn’t look back when she turned the corner to the elevator bank. Steve shook his head and unlocked his door. It had been a one-time thing. He didn’t need the complication.

* * *

He walked into the kitchen and made it all the way to the fridge before he realized she was sitting at the small table that seats four. She was alone and had a bag of gummy bears open in front of her. She looked up from the book she’d been reading, eyes wide and pink lips parted.

“Hi,” she said softly.

Steve swallowed and pulled open the fridge. “Hey,” he replied as he reached in and grabbed a small single-serving carton of protein shake.

When he turned around to face her, she looked ready to say something. As if she’d just thought better of it, she closed her mouth and directed her eyes back to the page.

“What are you reading?” he asked.

She shrugged and flattened the book on the table so he could see the pages, but not the cover. “Nothing. It’s silly.”

“Okay,” he replied, twisting the cap off the shake and pouring half of it down his throat. He didn’t even taste it. That was probably a good thing. The chocolate one was chalky and slightly bitter.

She shifted in her chair and opened her mouth. Steve waited for what she was going to say, but nothing came out. Natasha walked into the room at just that moment. “Hey,” she told them both, her gaze assessing the situation before she moved past Steve to the fridge.

“Hey,” Darcy replied.

Natasha pulled a small container of leftovers from the top shelf and popped them in the microwave. Steve wasn’t sure why he was still standing there like an idiot, but he was. He felt like he was in a trance, unthinking, unfeeling, floating in nothingness. Except for when he looked at Darcy Lewis and then he felt warmth in his stomach. He wouldn’t call it a pleasant feeling, though. Numb was good. This felt sick.

“You like the book?” Natasha asked, nodding at it.

Darcy gave her a thin smile. “Yeah, it’s good.”

Natasha spared a glance in his direction. She was perceptive and Steve felt like all his thoughts were written on a billboard over his head. Could Nat see the tension between him and Darcy? Did she know Steve wanted to pull Darcy into the stairwell again and fuck her out of his system? Was Nat ashamed of him for all those depraved thoughts he had for this sweet girl who was hurting? She was alone and here he was thinking about pulling those jeans down her legs so he could get at what was between her thighs. Maybe put his mouth on those tits. Steve slammed his eyes shut and turned away from the women, taking another long drink from the carton.

“Hot, huh?” It was Nat’s voice that asked the question. For a moment, Steve thought she was talking to him, asking him if he was hot for Darcy. He was, but he wasn’t about to admit it.

Darcy laughed softly. “Yeah. It’s, uh, explicit.”

“Did you get to the bathroom scene?”

“I, uh, think I just started it,” Darcy replied.

“It’s good,” Nat said. “I’ll leave you to it.” As she strolled by, she smiled at Steve and said, “See you, Steve.”

“See ya,” he replied through clenched teeth. What was Darcy reading? Obviously something from Natasha. What bathroom scene? “Did Natasha give you that?” Steve asked as he turned back to look at Darcy.

She nodded and closed the book, hiding the cover with her arm. “Yeah. It’s just some dumb romance novel. She said escaping reality helps sometimes.”

“Does it help?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Reality is kinda hard to escape. It’s a way to pass the time.”

Steve knew he should leave, but he didn’t want to. Her hair was down today, and she was in an oversized sweater that hung off one of her shoulders. He could see her bra strap lying against her flawless skin. He’d had his mouth all over her neck a month ago. She’d loved it, too. He stepped closer and looked down at the book even though her arm was blocking his view. Now that he was this close, he could smell her arousal. She was wet, and he knew it was probably because of the dirty book Nat had given her, but he wanted it to be because of him.

“You wanna…” He swallowed and started over again. “You wanna go somewhere with me?” He murmured the question, looking at the book, not her face.

“Where?” she asked.

“Anywhere we can be alone,” he said on an exhale, his voice breathy and soft.

Two seconds passed before she said, “Okay.”

He’d suggested it, but he hadn’t really expected her to agree. “Yeah?” Steve asked, finally lifting his gaze to look her in the face.

She seemed so nervous as she chewed on that plump lower lip. “Yeah,” Darcy agreed.

The desire in his blood felt white hot. After weeks of fucking his own hand, he was going to have the real thing again. “Come on,” he said, dropping the rest of his shake into the garbage and walking out of the kitchen. He wanted to pull her along behind him, but he didn’t want to scare her or get caught by someone who was going to tell him what a bad guy he was for taking advantage of her. Because he _was_ taking advantage of her. Maybe what he was doing wasn’t so bad if he made her feel good while he did it. If she came for him, then it was okay.

He heard the legs of the chair she’d been sitting in scrape across the floor as she stood up and followed behind him. Her room was one floor up. His was two. Both were too far. He pushed open the women’s bathroom door and stepped inside. The door closed behind him before she arrived. He stood beside it for several seconds, anxiety creeping into his mind as he considered whether she’d bailed on him. She was a good girl, sweet, kind. She deserved more than a fuck in the public bathroom next to the kitchen. He wasn’t that guy, though.

The door opened just enough for her to slip inside. Steve grabbed her arm and pulled her further into the room before turning the lock on the door. Besides the cleaning staff, Nat and Nebula were the only other women who had access to this floor, but he didn’t want to run the risk of either discovering what was happening.

Darcy opened her mouth, but instead of letting her talk, Steve dipped his head down and kissed her, sweeping his tongue over hers. She tasted sweet, probably the gummy bears she’d been eating before he’d walked into the kitchen. She sounded sweet, too, when she moaned and clutched at his shirt with her little hands. The way she melted all over him when he kissed her and put his hands on her hips made his brain start buzzing with thoughts of how she’d felt that night in the stairwell and how close he was to feeling that again.

Steve backed her into the bathroom until her ass hit the vanity. Her hands were all over him—running through his hair, caressing his neck and chest, gripping his shoulders. She got daring and teased her fingertips over his abdomen, stopping at his sweatpants. His hips shifted, urging her to go lower even though he hadn’t consciously done so. Sometimes fighting was easy like this. It was a dance, a rhythm he didn’t even need to think about. His body just _knew_. Duck here, shift there, punch here, kick there, jump, roll, feint. Easy like he was on autopilot and letting his body drive. Easy because he didn’t have to think and consider and worry.

Her hand brushed over his cock twice before she wrapped her fingers around him. The material of the baggy sweatpants between her soft hand and his hard cock was annoying, but her grip felt like heaven. Letting go like he’d done the last time he had her alone like this, he gave his body over to those baser instincts. He needed to be inside her, and the way she was moving against him let him know she wanted the same thing.

Grabbing her hips, he forced her to turn around so her back was to him. Darcy’s palms smacked down on the vanity as he grabbed her hair with one hand and shoved his other down the front of her jeans. It took a bit of work with his fingers, but he managed to get his hand down far enough to feel the slickness of her pussy lips. She’d been wet before they’d even entered the bathroom, probably fantasizing about some character in that novel. Jealousy flared up as he rubbed his middle finger over her clit. Darcy gasped and bucked against him, but couldn’t do much with her thighs pressed against the edge of the vanity and his hand fisted in her hair. Why the fuck was he jealous over some character in the book? He barely knew this woman.

His hand faltered as he considered exactly what he was doing. This wasn’t him. He didn’t fuck a woman he didn’t know in semi-public places. Darcy moaned and shifted her hips. “Don’t stop,” she begged before pushing her ass back into him.

Steve clenched his teeth together as he pulled his hand out of her jeans and flipped the button open. She was grinding against him hard enough that he struggled to get them unzipped. _Finally_ , he thought when he stepped back and let go of her just long enough to pull the jeans and panties down to her knees. He made quick work of pushing his own pants down. His cock bobbed in the air when it was finally free of constraints.

Her ass was round and his thumbs sank into the flesh of her cheeks when he grabbed her hips again. The way her waist flared out into those wide hips and her sexy ass made Steve’s blood run hot. If that wasn’t enough, the way she pushed back into him and whispered his name made his mind go wild with desire. Reaching down, he grabbed his cock and bent his knees to get a good angle to enter her. If she’d been a little taller, then this would be easier. Maybe next time they could do this in his bed. Next time? Jesus, he thought, shaking his head and bumping the head of his dick right up against her pussy lips.

“Yes,” Darcy hissed as he slipped inside. Steve’s eyes fluttered closed as her muscles contracted around his cock. She was so hot, so ready for him. Why had he waited so long to do this? Why had he been avoiding her? She wanted it so bad and he wanted to give it to her just as much.

Flexing his hips, he pumped into her, one hand on her hip and the other lifting his shirt up so he could see his cock disappear into her tight little body. Darcy shifted herself back to meet each of his thrusts. He growled and dropped his shirt, moving that hand over her other hip and around to pinch her clit between his thumb and forefinger. The sensation set her off. He felt her pussy clamp down on him as she tensed up and said, “Oh, fuck, _Steve_...”

Yes. Hearing her say his name like that made his balls tighten. He looked up and realized they were in front of the large mirror over the vanity. The lights were soft and pink-hued, accentuating her flushed skin. She was looking into the mirror, but not at herself. Darcy was watching him over her shoulder. When he glanced up, their eyes locked in the mirror. Her hair was tousled, her lips plump from her own teeth biting them. It dawned on him that she was trying to be quiet and the idea that she was struggling to keep her moans down gave him a surge of pride. He wanted to wreck her, make her scream for him.

He wanted to shoot himself deep inside her. Using the arm wrapped around her, Steve lifted Darcy up until she was barely on her tiptoes as he picked up the pace. She gasped and threw one of her hands up to the mirror, palm flat against it while her other hand balanced her on the countertop. “Oh my god,” she groaned as he stroked her clit again. She was so easy to please. All he was doing was taking what he wanted and here she was barely able to speak. Her eyes were glazed over and heavy-lidded with lust.

Steve was close. So fucking close. Thinking of leaving her the way he had last time—wet and sticky with his cum leaking out of her tight little pussy—pushed him closer to the edge of his orgasm. He pressed the pad of his index finger down on her clit as he thrust in hard and fast again and again. She made a keening, moaning noise in the back of her throat at the same time her pussy fluttered around him. Steve watched her face in the mirror, watched the way she closed her eyes and opened her mouth. She was so vulnerable, so hot for him. He’d taken away everything she was feeling except for the fullness of his dick deep inside her. Nothing else existed, and he loved it. No fucked up world, no failure or guilt, no grief. Just Darcy and the way she came so hard for him.

His orgasm hit him hard and ripped a strangled grunt of pleasure from him. To avoid more noise, he clenched his teeth and pressed his lips together as his rhythm faltered. It felt like the pleasure of release just went on and on even though he knew it was only a few seconds. Just a handful of intense moments in which all he could feel was her body wrapped so tight around him. Slowly, he lowered her until her feet were flat on the floor again. His fingers were still on her clit and each time he shifted, she gave a little whimper of pleasure or pain. He hoped it was pleasure.

Pulling out, he kept his arm wrapped around her and his hand on her mound. She inhaled sharply when Steve slid his hand deeper and guided his middle finger inside her. Her pussy was so wet from both of them coming. He rubbed what felt like his own cum all over her clit when he pulled his middle finger out. She sucked in a shuddering breath. “I’m… that’s… too much. I’m so sensitive right now.”

Steve felt like an asshole for a moment. “Did I hurt you?” he murmured, pulling his hand away and helping her stand up straight.

Darcy laughed softly. “No. You just… I need a minute or two. You can’t be touching me right after you make me come like that.”

“You want me to apologize?” he whispered into her hair, looking at her flushed face in the mirror.

“Uh, fuck no.” She smiled. “I’m gonna say thank you and you’re gonna say…”

He grinned, hiding his mouth in her hair. “Thank you.”

This made her laugh again. “You were supposed to say, ‘You’re welcome.’”

“Pretty sure I was supposed to say thank you after what you let me do to you.” Steve stepped back and pulled his sweatpants up. By the time he looked back at her, she was sliding her jeans over her perfect ass. He watched her in the mirror as she looked down and buttoned them with trembling hands.

“You okay?” he asked. The awkward nature of the situation was starting to set it. Reality was starting to creep back to the edges of his mind. Soon that would be all there was—guilt and grief. He could add his horrible behavior toward this perfectly nice young woman to all that other guilt he was drowning in.

“I’m good…. Great. Thanks.” She turned and looked at his chest, not his face.

“You sure?” he asked.

“Yeah, Steve. I’m sure. Don’t worry about me.”

He felt a little sick to his stomach. This wasn’t really his style. He took a girl out for dinner, and if they had sex then it was in a bed underneath sheets with her on her back. He got to know a woman before sex. He barely knew Darcy Lewis, he’d never taken her to dinner, and he didn’t understand why he couldn’t stop thinking about fucking her in every possible way. He also didn’t understand how it had never felt as good as it had been with her.

“You want me to walk you back to your room?”

She looked up at him, her expression flat and difficult to read. “No, I’m fine. Can you unlock the door?”

Steve mentally flinched as he stepped over to the door and flipped the lock. He held it open for her and watched her hips swing as she walked down the hallway. All he could think about were her pants around her knees and his hands on her ass. He flexed his fingers when she walked into the kitchen. A moment later, she emerged with her book and glanced in his direction. He was still standing by the ladies’ room.

“See you around,” Darcy said. Her voice was soft, but he heard every word. Instead of responding with words, he gave her a nod and watched her walk even further away from him.

* * *

He stopped avoiding her. That didn’t mean he was okay with what had happened. Well, he was more than okay with it, but there was guilt there. Guilt was a part of his life nowadays. It had been piled on and piled on until he couldn’t even imagine what it would feel like to be out from underneath all that weight. People had been counting on them and they’d failed. He’d failed.

Steve thought about what he could have done differently every single day. His regrets went back years and years. They started the moment he didn’t turn the train around for Bucky and ended right there in Wakanda when he’d failed to stop Thanos from taking the Stone from Vision’s head. He didn’t regret Darcy, but he damn well felt guilty for using her. Sometimes he could convince himself that she was using him too, and that made Steve feel better.

It had been three days since he’d lured her into the bathroom and fucked her right in front of the mirror. Every night when she disappeared into her room, he’d walk by and think about knocking. He never did, though. Instead, he’d go back to his room and jerked off to thoughts of her—how her cheeks flushed and her eyes fluttered closed, how she moaned his name and pushed back against him like she welcomed his touch, how tight she felt around him and the aroma of her juices on his cock and fingers after they’d finished. It was more than enough to get him painfully hard and enough to make him come so intensely he lifted his hips off the mattress and growled her name in the privacy of his own bedroom.

“Steve. Steve, are you listening?”

His eyes focused on Natasha’s face. “What?” he asked.

“Tony just talked to Scott Lang.”

“He has tech that might help,” Tony said, his eyes manic. Tony was deep into his second day of no sleep. He’d crash soon. If he didn’t, Bruce would slip a sedative into his coffee. Tony either hadn’t caught on or he was appreciative of the excuse to pass out. Steve suspected it was the latter. Tony Stark was no dummy. Bruce better have the drug ready before Scott Lang and his new technology arrived or Tony would mainline Red Bull to stay up another two days.

“What does it do?” he asked, looking at Tony and Bruce from across the conference table.

Bruce sat back in his chair. “It's nanotechnology. Pym was a visionary in the nanotech field. No one was better. They’ve discovered a Quantum Realm. Lang said Pym thought it might be possible to use it to time travel.”

Steve shook his head. “This is above my pay grade. What took him so long?”

“Uh, apparently, he got stuck in the quantum realm. He seemed a little… well, he seemed like he didn’t want to talk about it. There might be a little PTSD there.”

“You just said it isn’t as simple as pushing a button and dialing back six years,” Nat said to Bruce, leaning her hip against the side of Steve’s chair.

He adjusted his glasses. “Well, it’s not. I’m not as familiar with Pym’s work as I’d like to be but from what I understand, the dial is the problem.”

Tony was staring into space and tapping his fingertips against the tabletop. He looked like an addict waiting for his next hit. Steve felt like he was the other side of Tony’s coin. Tony was alive, every nerve ending electrified as he worked feverishly to find a solution. Steve felt dead inside, empty, useless. The only thing that had gotten a rise of out him lately had been Darcy Lewis.

“What about B.A.R.F.?” Tony said to everyone and no one.

Clint leaned forward and braced his hands on the table. “Throwing up isn’t going to help, Tony.”

“Binary Augmented Retro Framing,” Bruce replied. “He’s talking about the technology he developed that allows you to go back and relive a memory.”

Natasha scoffed. “I do _not_ want to relive that day. Look,” she said, leveling her gaze on Tony and Steve, “I know you both love to think that you can solve every problem, but that wasn’t ever going to go our way. There was nothing you could have done.”

“We almost had him!” Tony snapped at her. His eyes shot over to Nebula. She was standing in the far corner of the room, her shoulder pressed against the wall and a bored look on her strange face. “We almost had him,” Tony repeated.

Nebula shrugged. “He didn’t have all the Stones then,” she told Tony. “With the Stones, he’s unstoppable.”

“Then we must stop him from getting the Stones,” Thor replied.

“He already has them,” Clint said, looking down to the end of the table where Thor sat.

Rocket walked into the room and climbed up on the chair next to Steve. Everyone stopped talking and watched him settle into the seat, looking like a child. “Hey, I don’t appreciate not being invited to the strategy meetings, morons. You think I got nothing to add?”

Tony waved his hand toward Rocket. “Please,” he said, suddenly looking weary. “What does the raccoon have to add.”

“Rabbit,” Thor corrected.

“Raccoon,” Clint said, backing Tony up.

“Rocket,” Rocket growled at them. “What the fuck is a raccoon?” When no one ventured to answer the question, Rocket said, “While you morons are sitting here with your thumbs up your asses, I’ve almost finished building a pile of junk that can get us off this rock and maybe somewhere we can steal a decent ship and find this dick.”

“And what then?” Steve asked.

“We kick his ass,” Rocket replied.

Steve felt nothing. There was no hope of bringing any of them back or reversing what had happened. They were all grasping at straws. It was over. This was it.

Natasha sighed. “Kick his ass, huh? Like that went so well the first time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few weeks ago, a visually-impaired reader contacted me via comment and asked if I'd consider changing the "///\\\\\" I have used to denote breaks in the narrative of a chapter. I felt embarrassed that I'd never considered the impact on someone who uses an audio reader to listen to my fics. Sorry about that, folks! I've changed it up with the horizontal rule/line in this fic and corrected a couple of my other fics to accommodate people who use audio readers. If you're visually-impaired think I can change the formatting of my fic to help you enjoy it, please don't hesitate to tell me. Once I'm finished with this fic, I'll go back and modify those I haven't already.
> 
> Also, this is probably a good place to say that the plot in this fic involves time travel and the nanotechnology introduced in the Antman movies. I'm not an expert and I actually haven't seen either Antman movie yet. Sooooo, this means that if I get something wrong or don't explain something to your satisfaction, you should file that away in your brain and either get over it or stop reading this fic. Remember, I'm not getting paid for this. Occasionally, I'll have readers comment about things they believe I've gotten wrong or things they think I should or shouldn't have done. If you feel like you need to make one of those comments, then I feel the need to let you know that they only thing it will do is annoy me. Typos, grammar errors, minor continuity errors--feel free to tell me. I don't mind at all. Putting on your know-it-all hat and telling me how to write my shit just irritates me since I do this in my free time.
> 
> Thank you to all the lovely folks who have commented and let me know you're reading. I hope you enjoy the rest!


	4. Chapter 4

> _“To tread this fantasy, openly. What have I done? Oh, this uncertainty is taking me over.” - Portishead (Over)_

Darcy tried her best to make her smile real and authentic, but she couldn’t seem to manage more than a maniacal grin that didn’t reach her eyes. Thor didn’t notice; he was too excited to tell her that Rocket had nearly completed work on an honest to goodness spaceship. Thor had plans to use it to search for the Asgardians who had fled Thanos before he used it to hunt Thanos himself.

“We’re not taking a detour to find some people who can’t shoot a gun,” Rocket said as he walked by and made his way to the toaster on the kitchen counter. Darcy’s fake smile dropped, and she watched the little talking raccoon as he pulled out a drawer and used it to crawl up onto the counter. Her eyes went wide as she looked back to Thor and nodded in the direction of Rocket.

Glancing over, Thor dismissed the fact that Rocket had flipped the toaster upside down and was attempting to remove parts from it. “We can look for my people and hunt the bastard who killed them,” Thor said.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’ll see. This is _my_ ship and it’s going where _I_ say so. You’re lucky I’m such a genius. This shithole doesn’t have anything I need.”

“Midgard is not a shithole, Rabbit.”

“Rocket,” Darcy told Thor.

The raccoon looked up at her and narrowed his eyes. He was rarely around and Darcy had never spoken with him before. She’d listened to him bitch at anyone who would listen but hadn’t actually exchanged words.

Steve walked into the room and stopped in the doorway. Darcy was betting that the gorgeous Asgardian prince at the table and the talking raccoon on the counter had nothing to do with Steve pulling up short. No, that was probably due to her. She felt her cheeks heat in his presence as she remembered exactly what they’d done only three days ago. It wasn’t difficult to recall; she’d thought about it every single night since then.

“What’s your name, sweetcheeks?”

Darcy’s eyes widened as she looked up at Rocket. “Who? Me?”

“Who else? You think I’m calling one of these testosterone machines sweetcheeks?”

“My mother called me—” Thor began.

“No,” Darcy and Rocket both said at the same time, interrupting Thor.

Rocket jumped down and looked up at her. “You got one of those Zunes?”

Darcy looked over her shoulder and then back at Rocket. “Like an old MP3 player?”

“You’re speaking a different language, sweetcheeks.”

She laughed at the absurdity of a raccoon telling her that she wasn’t speaking English. Steve Rogers’ gaze felt like it was burning her alive as he stood there and watched the scene play out. “I—I, uh, have an old iPod. It’s like a Zune. Do you need it for… for parts?”

“Yes, I need it for parts. It’s the centerpiece to the engine that will send this ship across the galaxy at warp speed,” Rocket said, his voice thick with sarcasm. “No, sweetcheeks. I need tunes. Look, I ain’t missing that dipshit Quill, but I could use a little music.”

Darcy stood up and looked at Thor. He shrugged. She was tempted to look at Steve, but she was afraid of what she’d see in his eyes. “Okay, iPod coming up,” she told Rocket.

He shouldered his way past Steve, who was still blocking the doorway, and said, “Move your ass, sweetcheeks.”

“Should I…?” Darcy asked Thor.

“He’s a sweet rabbit. I don’t see what harm could come of helping him with these tunes you have.”

God, her life had really taken a turn for the weird. Darcy moved toward the door and finally looked up at Steve’s face. It was expressionless, but his blue eyes were watching her closely. She gave him a tight smile and tried to slip past him. He turned sideways to give her room. For a brief moment, while his hot breath was on her face, Darcy thought he might just push her up against the doorframe and kiss her. Instead, he let her slide on by with a nod and a murmur of her name under his breath.

She looked over her shoulder once she was clear of his massive gravitational pull and said, “Thanks, Steve.”

“Come on! I got work to do!” Rocket yelled from the far end of the hall.

* * *

Darcy left her iPod with Rocket. He seemed to prefer older songs—nothing recorded after the early eighties. It was bizarre and more than a little surprising that a talking raccoon from another planet knew every single word to ELO’s Mr. Blue Sky. He was a little less abrasive when you got him alone, but Darcy wasn’t about to piss him off, so she handed him the tools he asked for and watched as he muttered under his breath and complained when any nineties pop came over the speakers of the landing pad.

When the woman who was mostly mechanical showed up, Darcy excused herself by backing away and leaving. That woman wasn’t nice at all. In fact, she seemed pretty dangerous. Rocket didn’t seem intimidated, so Darcy assumed he and Nebula had an unspoken, grumpy agreement that they wouldn’t fuck with each other. It kinda makes sense, she thought as she took the elevator downstairs and let herself into her hotel-like room.

There was a clothing closet and a bathroom with a large tile shower immediately to the right of the door. If you bypassed it and continued into the studio apartment, there was a small kitchenette on the other side of that wall. It had a microwave, toaster oven, and mini-fridge. There was also a small sink that probably wouldn’t have held more than a plate and a cup. A half-wall separated the kitchenette from the living space. The bed was a queen that faced a flat-screen television affixed to the wall. To the left of the television were two plush armchairs and to the right was a round table with three chairs. The entire wall on the far side of the studio apartment was glass from floor to ceiling. She had a view of a few of rooftops that was eventually blocked by a couple buildings.

She made a sandwich with some peanut butter she’d lifted from the pantry in the kitchen and ate it standing at the counter. After sitting on the foot of her bed and watching the news broadcast until the channel went off the air, she turned the television off and shuffled into the bathroom to brush her teeth. It was around this time of the night that she started thinking about Steve. Standing in front of her bathroom vanity brought back some pretty strong memories of him pulling her jeans down and bending her over the sink.

She swished water around to rinse out her mouth and changed into an old T-shirt. She’d found it in the room when she moved it. A man had lived here, but there were no signs of him other than some pieces of clothing he’d left behind. She tried not to think about what happened to him because it was probably exactly what had happened to Jane and her parents and her brother. Darcy shook her head and padded back into the living area. She stood by the window and looked out over the city. She’d been to New York many times and always remembered it being brighter than this. That’s what losing half the population does to a place, Darcy told herself. She inhaled a deep breath and exhaled forcefully when she heard three soft knocks on her door.

Her heart shot up into her throat and the first thing she thought was that the man who used to live here had returned and would be upset at her for wearing his clothes. It was a silly thought that she shoved aside when she decided it was Thor checking up on her. He’d been through so much, but he was still so giving and understanding. Darcy didn’t know how anyone could endure what he’d endured without turning into something bitter and hopeless. She’d been through so much less and she could no longer see the world through his eyes. Thor saw the good in everyone. All Darcy saw were damaged lives and people barely holding shit together.

She tugged the hem of the shirt down to cover the tops of her thighs and pulled open the door with that fake smile on her face. “Don’t worry; Rocket was a sweet rabbit just like you—” Her smile and her comment fell apart when she saw Steve Rogers, not Thor, standing in the hallway. He had one forearm braced on the doorframe and his face was tilted down so he was looking up at her through his lashes.

“Hi,” he said softly.

She swallowed as her thoughts scattered in all different directions. Most of them went to sex, though. Hot, sweaty, dirty sex with Steve Rogers and his perfect body. His perfect dick, her libido added. “Hey,” Darcy replied. Was her voice breathy? God, she sounded sexed up already. What the fuck?

“You busy?” Steve’s lips barely moved when he asked the question.

“Nope,” Darcy answered.

He cleared his throat and shifted his stance. Her eyes dropped to his crotch to see that he was already hard. That impressive dick she’d been thinking about was pressed down the left leg of his brown cargo pants. “Want some company?” he murmured.

“If you’re the company,” she replied without a second thought.

Steve lifted his head to look at her more fully, taking in the T-shirt and nothing else. His jaw tensed before he glanced to the left and then the right. “You gonna let me in or you wanna go back to the ladies’ room?” His voice was rough and breathy like he’d been thinking about that last time just as much as she had.

Darcy moved back and he stepped into the space she’d occupied. Had he put her into a trance? Was this some magic dick power he got from that damn super soldier serum? All she could do was stare at him and do whatever he told her. The muscles in her thighs tensed when he shut the door behind himself and rested his body against it.

He leaned his head back until the crown of it was on the door and she could see the tendons in his neck. “I feel like I should apologize for showing up with bad intentions,” he said, his gaze going right over her.

Darcy laughed softly and shook her head. “If we’re gonna have sex, then I wouldn’t call that bad intentions.”

When he just sighed and kept his gaze above her head, she stepped up and pressed her palm against his cock. That elicited a sharp intake of breath before he muttered, “Fuck,” through clenched teeth.

His curse emboldened her and the way he’d dropped by her place for a booty call made Darcy feel wanton. Captain America, who could probably pull any woman he wanted, had decided he wanted to fuck her. She was wet just remembering the last time, remembering the pressure of taking him inside her. Darcy dropped to her knees and the motion finally made Steve lift his head from where it rested.

“Darcy,” he said, looking down at her as she unbuckled his belt. One of his big hands dropped on top of hers like he was going to stop her. When Darcy pushed it aside, he let her do so without a struggle. She’d called the bluff on his protest and realized it had all been for show. Steve Rogers had no problem with her unzipping his pants and reaching inside to slip his dick out. He just didn’t want her to feel obligated. She felt a lot of things about him, but obligated was not one of them.

He was hot, and the skin of his hard cock was like velvet. He was big, too, bigger than any other guy she’d done this with. “Wow,” she murmured, wrapping her fingers around him.

“Wow?” he asked.

Darcy looked up to see his head tilted down so he could watch her. “Wow, no wonder I’ve been trying to get you alone since last time. This is… impressive,” she whispered.

Steve’s laugh was breathy and disbelieving as she tentatively moved her fist up and down his shaft, spreading the fluid leaking from his tip over the head of his cock. Parting her lips, Darcy guided the tip into her mouth. As soon as the flat of her tongue pressed up against the ridge along the head, Steve grunted and smacked the back of his head on her door. The swift reaction to her mouth on him pleased Darcy. She fell on him with enthusiasm, licking and sucking. She couldn’t fit all of him in her mouth, but she kept her fist firmly around the base of his cock and let it follow her lips as she bobbed her head up and down on him.

“Ah, _fuck_ ,” he grunted before grabbing a fistful of her hair in one hand and her arm with the other. Darcy squeaked and released him as he pulled her to her feet and maneuvered her with his big body until Darcy’s back was against the wall by the door.

“What?” she asked, breathless. Her lips were wet and his salty taste was still on her tongue. Instead of replying, he slipped his hands up her shirt and hooked his fingers in the hips of her panties. Darcy gripped his shoulders as he bent to pull them down to her knees. Once there, he let them drop to the floor so he could reach around and grab her ass in both hands, lifting her up and pressing her back against the wall. It was exhilarating and so familiar even though it had been weeks since he’d fucked her in the stairwell like this. “Oh my god, yes,” she whispered when he reached between them with one hand to line the tip of his cock up with her opening.

Steve gave her another breathy laugh that was strangled by a grunt of pleasure when he bottomed out in her. She grabbed a fistful of his hair in one hand while the other stayed on his shoulder. He pulled out and pushed back in with such force that her back slid up the wall. Darcy tightened her grip on his hair, and Steve pressed his lips to her ear. “You okay?” he asked, pushing himself up into her again.

“I’m fucking great,” she told him.

“Can’t seem to stop myself,” he murmured against her neck. His hot breath against her skin made Darcy’s pussy throb around him.

She wanted to be surrounded by this man as he made her forget everything that was happening in the outside world. “Don’t stop,” she urged. “Don’t stop. God, you feel so good, so big.”

He growled as she locked her ankles at the small of his back. Darcy felt him speed up his rhythm, not going as hard as he had at first. That was probably a good thing since she wanted to be able to walk tomorrow. Steve thrust relentlessly, one hand firmly on her ass with fingers digging into her cheek and the other palming one of her breasts before pinching her nipple through the thin fabric of the shirt. Darcy thought the sensations were overwhelming until she felt his lips ghost over her cheek. When he finally kissed her, sliding his tongue over hers and groaning into her mouth, she lost the ability to think about anything but the present. There was only him—his hard body, his thick cock filling her up, his strong hands with fingertips digging into her flesh, his pliant lips and searching tongue, his hot breath and wiry beard.

He hadn’t taken off his pants, so the drag of the fabric was almost painfully rough against her sensitive clit each time he pushed up into her. Almost. It was also almost enough to get her off. Darcy tried to shift her hips by using the leverage of her legs around his waist and her shoulders against the wall. Like he knew exactly what she wanted, Steve shoved a hand between them and pressed his thumb to her clit. The sensation of his hand right where their bodies met made both of them exhale a shuddering breath before he initiated another filthy kiss that ended with her bottom lip between his teeth.

“Steve,” she said, pulling her lip out of his mouth and gasping his name as his thumb slipped off her clit. He returned the pad of his thumb where she wanted it, using a bit too much pressure at first. She felt the walls of her pussy tighten as he rubbed her up and down, then side to side like he was trying to find the force and motion that would make her come.

“Want you to come for me,” he whispered, lips brushing over hers as he adjusted his rhythm, going harder and faster now.

Darcy kissed him, biting his lip as she pulled away. “So close,” she confessed.

“Wanna feel you clamp down on me when you come, sweetheart.” His voice was rough, breathless, deep. Darcy wasn’t sure if it was the timbre of his voice or the rough pad of his thumb working that sensitive bundle of nerves nestled at the top of her slit or his thick cock sliding in and out of her with such ease, but she came hard, arching her body and pressing her shoulders and head back into the wall.

When the waves of shuddering pleasure passed, she felt both his hands gripping her ass. Darcy looked down between her breasts to see him watching his cock slide in and out of her pussy. His lips were parted and his eyes had a glazed look to them like he was chasing down his own pleasure, like he was using her body. Darcy almost came a second time just at the thought.

His little grunts of pleasure led up to Steve tilting his head back as he thrust deep inside her and held himself there. Darcy ran her gaze over the tendons and veins in his neck when he leaned his head back and clenched all his muscles as he came deep inside her. His orgasm was powerful enough that she could feel the jump of his cock in her pussy as he unloaded himself.

She kept watching him with hazy fascination as he leveled his gaze on her, pupils wide in the dim light of her apartment. Darcy let her fingers move up into his hair so she could lightly scratch her short nails over his scalp.

Steve turned his head and let his lips graze the inside of her forearm. She could feel him inhale deeply as if he were trying to smell her skin there. “Thank you,” he whispered.

This made Darcy chuckle softly. “I think I should be thanking you.”

He shook his head like her reply wasn’t very funny and carefully lowered her to stand on her own two feet. In the process, his softening cock slipped out of her, making her inhale. She wanted to fall asleep with him inside her, under her, on top of her, just anywhere _near_ her. But that’s not what this was about; she knew better than to think he was looking for anything besides a good orgasm. She might have been able to convince herself that was all she wanted when he’d shown up at her door. It was in this moment that the hardness in her heart turned to heaviness. It’d be different if he was an asshole, but he wasn’t. He seemed like a good guy who had been through hell and back.

Darcy’s shirt fell around her legs, hiding the slickness between her thighs as his cum leaked out of her. She wanted to reach down and touch herself, to feel what he’d done, but she didn’t want him to think she was weird. “Did I hurt you?” he murmured, stepping back and looking at her before sliding his eyes off to the side like he couldn’t maintain eye contact after what they’d done.

“No,” she said. “I’m… good. Great.”

The awkwardness was thick in the air between them, but she didn’t know how to dispel it. Was this where he tucked his cock back into his pants and left her alone to find her panties on the floor? This crash from the high was too familiar of a feeling. Her heart was so heavy, Darcy was sure it was in her stomach by now.

“Was this a mistake?” he asked.

She’d been so focused on her panties on the floor that his question didn’t sink in immediately. When it did, she looked up at him and all the vulnerability on his face. It was a question, not a statement. Thank god for small favors, she thought. “No,” Darcy replied. She shifted her hips, and the movement made Steve glance down at her thighs. She was sure he could probably see a wet trail of his cum sneaking down the inside of her leg and curling to cut across her thigh.

He rolled his tongue out to wet his lower lip and she almost came right then and there. “Got you a little messy,” he said, his voice rough but not very apologetic.

She gave him a breathy, nervous laugh. “Yeah. I don’t mind, though. Anytime you wanna… get me messy… Well, it’s not like I have anything better to do.”

She cringed as the words came out of her mouth. Darcy wasn’t sure if they sounded cold and heartless or pathetic and desperate. Probably both. Definitely both. You’d think she’d never talked to a guy after having hot sex with him. Well, to be fair, she’d never had sex quite as hot as Steve sex before. Captain America definitely knew how to fuck.

Steve opened his mouth to reply, but Darcy held her hand up to silence him. “Sorry,” she said with a wince. “That didn’t come out like I meant it to. I mean, I just… I don’t mind when… I like when…” She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “I’m always up for orgasms with you. Any time, any place.”

He gave her a tight smile and said, “Yeah, thanks. I… thanks.” She wasn’t sure of what exactly he was thinking or feeling, but his eyes drifted back down to her thighs and where the shirt covered her mound.

What in the hell did he even think of her, standing there with his cum dripping down her legs? She felt sexy and disgusting at the same time; it was a bizarre way to be. “I should take a shower,” she told him, rubbing her thighs together.

“Mmm,” he replied, eyes still fixated.

“You, uh—” She’d intended on asking him if he wanted to shower with her, but he ripped all words from her mouth and thoughts from her brain when he stepped forward and slipped a hand between her legs, cupping her with his palm. Darcy gasped as he slipped his middle finger inside her soaked pussy.

“Oh my god, Steve,” she said, grabbing his shoulders again.

“So wet,” he whispered, lifting her shirt up so he could watch his hand work her.

Darcy laughed softly and said, “That’s your fault on both accounts.”

“Both accounts?” Steve asked, echoing her last two words.

“Mmm, hmm. You got me so worked up and then you…” She felt a flush burn her cheeks and trailed off, unable to say the rest.

“And then I came inside you,” Steve finished for her, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Yeah,” Darcy agreed.

“You like that?”

She shifted her hips when he swept his middle finger up to her clit and spread her cream and his all over that bundle of flesh. “Yeah,” she said on a sharp exhale.

“Me too,” he said. “I want you to come for me again.”

“Steve,” she said, meaning to tell him that she couldn’t possibly do that again so soon after he’d sent her over the edge just a few minutes before. Instead, she opened her mouth and gave him a breathy, sexed-up moan. God, she was fucking shameless when it came to him.

He worked her clit, letting it slide between his middle finger and forefinger. “You’re so messy. I love it,” he murmured, watching his hand on her pussy.

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” she muttered, letting her head fall back to smack against the wall. He was winding her up again, building to another orgasm. “Oh, god. Oh, _Steve_.”

He moved half a step closer and put his free hand on her hip. “I like when you say my name,” he confessed. “You couldn’t really in the staircase or the bathroom.”

“Steve,” she said again, bucking her hips up into his hand.

“Tell me what you want.”

“This. You.” Darcy felt her cheeks heat up again when she realized what words had just fallen out of her mouth.

Steve took it in stride. “You’re getting wetter,” he said in wonder, pressing two fingers inside her and curling them until he hit that ridged spot just behind her clit.

“ _Steve_ ,” she said again, a desperate and begging quality to her voice.

“You gonna come for me, sweetheart?” His free hand moved off her hip so he could take her clit between his thumb and forefinger. “You gonna say my name when you come for me?”

It was the growl in his voice that set her off. Well, that and the implied possession when he talked about her saying his name while he controlled her body for that brief moment. Darcy bucked against his hands when her orgasm hit her, tightening up every muscle in her body, especially the walls of her pussy. “Steve, please,” she said as she wished it was his cock buried deep inside her instead of just his fingers. This was the next best thing, and it was pretty damn good.

She held onto his shoulders as she tried to catch her breath and regain her senses. Was she still standing? She was, but she suspected it was due in large part to his hands on her waist. “What was that for?” she asked, feeling vulnerable with the way he was caging her in, with the way her shirt was hiked up around her waist by his hands.

“You want me to apologize?”

Darcy laughed and let her forehead fall forward to rest on his chest. “Hell no. Just wondered what I did right to get two Captain America induced orgasms in one night.”

“Steve,” he said, chest rumbling against her forehead.

“Well, then two _Steve_ induced orgasms.”

His fingers flexed on her hips. “You looked sexy standing there with my cum on your thighs.”

Darcy groaned and clenched her legs together. “Stop or you’ll set me off again.”

This made him chuckle. “Yeah?”

She tapped her forehead against his chest twice before leaning back and looking up at his face. “You wanna grab a shower?”

Steve let go of her hips with what felt like reluctance and tucked his dick back into his pants. “Nah, I’m okay.”

Darcy’s heart sank. “Oh. Okay.”

“I’ll get outta your hair.”

She swallowed the emotion crawling up her throat. “Yeah, okay. Whatever.” Reality that had been lurking around the edges of her consciousness began creeping back into her mind. They were fucked, half the world was gone, nothing would ever be the same, and she was just release for him. She was just a way to blow off steam.

Steve took two steps back and curled his fingers into fists. “You okay?” he asked.

Darcy smiled and said, “I’m great. Thanks for… you know.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Thanks.”

She watched as he turned toward the door and opened it. In her dreams, he would have turned around and said something to her, but this was cold, hard reality so he just closed the door behind himself and left her to an empty room.


	5. Chapter 5

> _“If it hurts, then baby, you’re all I need. I’m thinking reality could make it, make it complete.” - Gallant (If It Hurts)_

Steve hurried down the hallway, his strides long and brisk. He needed to get away from her door before he got lost in her room. He adjusted his half-hard dick in his pants as he turned the corner. Just before he hit the door of the stairwell, his mind went back to taking her up against the wall of the stairs just one floor below. He ran his hand over his face as he tried to shut down that line of thought. Her musky scent was still all over him.

Steve pulled his hand away quickly and stared down at his palm and his long fingers. Tentatively, he brought it back up to his mouth and inhaled deeply as he laid his forefinger and middle finger to this lips. He hesitated for a moment, fighting the urge, telling himself it was silly. In the end, he gave up and flicked his tongue out to taste what was left on his fingers. It was faint, barely there. He wanted more. He wanted to bury his face between her legs. Why hadn’t he done that tonight? He’d had her right there in the narrow hallway just inside her door. He could have knelt down in front of her and slipped a leg over his shoulder to open her up to him. He could have licked and sucked and fucked her with his tongue.

But he hadn’t. Her taking control and putting that sweet mouth on his dick had sent him over the edge of sanity. Steve licked his fingers again and closed his eyes. He’d had her alone in her room and he’d fucked her against the wall by the door. Hadn’t even taken her shirt off to see her body. He was fucking useless.

Gritting his teeth together, he turned around and marched back down the empty hallway and turned the corner. He stopped outside her door just like he’d stopped only a few short minutes ago. Steve lifted his hand and let his knuckles rap against the door twice. He heard movement, maybe clothing, along with the sound of her bare feet on the tile. When she pulled open the door, she looked wrecked. He’d been so wrapped up in his own pleasure and discomfort that he hadn’t noticed her glazed eyes and flushed cheeks and messy hair. Darcy looked like she’d just been fucked because she had. By _me_ , he thought with no small amount of pleasure.

“Steve,” she said, her pink lips parted and her eyes wide. Water was running in the bathroom. She’d been getting ready to take a shower.

“Your offer still stand on the shower?” he asked.

Her eyes shifted to her left where the door to the bathroom was before focusing on him again. “Of course.”

Steve reached out and put a hand on her waist, stepping into the apartment and walking her backward. She followed his lead, almost like they were dancing. The way she seemed to trust him made his stomach tighten up and his chest hurt. He didn’t deserve that trust at all. She’d depended on him to keep her world safe and he’d failed her by letting Thanos murder her family, her friends, all with a snap of the asshole’s fucking fingers.

“You wanna shower with me,” she asked, looking up at him as he kicked the door shut behind him.

“Yeah,” Steve agreed.

Darcy smiled. “Okay.”

His hand slid over her hip as she turned toward the door of the brightly lit bathroom, but he didn’t pull it away. Instead, he put his free hand on her other hip and leaned into her body so he could smell her messy hair. That was how he followed her into the bathroom. The five, round bulbs over the vanity cast a pinkish glow over the room, making her already luminous skin appear almost unreal. Her eyes were wide and watching him in the mirror. He flashed back to the bathroom a few days ago. Now they had absolute privacy and there was more than a little discomfort in her eyes.

The look made his gut twist. He’d been numb for weeks and here she comes along and makes him feel like shit again. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

She shifted her gaze away from the mirror to the shower and laughed softly. “Oh, just a little intimidated to get undressed in front of, like, the hottest guy ever.”

Steve tightened his grip on her hips and pulled her back into his body. His stupid cock was already rock hard as it pressed against the top of her ass. She was right; they’d had sex three times without taking off much clothing at all. “Don’t be intimidated,” he whispered in her ear. He wanted to add that she definitely shouldn’t be intimidated after all they’d done, after the places he’d had his hands and his cock. He wanted to tell her that he loved every bit of her body he’d been able to touch and wanted to see all of it, wanted to put his mouth on it. He didn’t, though. The words crumbled in his mouth when he parted his lips to whisper them in her hair.

“You first,” she said, looking at him in the mirror again. He looked back, seeing them in profile, her back pressed against his chest and stomach. The mirror cut them off just below the hips. Reluctantly, Steve released his hold on her and reached back to pull his T-shirt off by grabbing the material between his shoulder blades. She’d turned toward the mirror, hands on the vanity as she watched him strip.

Steve was comfortable with his body while he was using it. It was like a well-oiled machine that allowed him to fight, climb, jump, run. It almost never failed him, unlike the one he’d grown up with that had failed him time and time again. However, in these moments where nothing was expected of him, he felt awkward in his own skin. Was this really his body? It felt so different, so foreign sometimes. He didn’t look at himself in the mirror while undressing for her. Looking felt strange, especially with her watching him with those blue eyes.

Pushing aside the discomfort, he popped the button on his pants and unzipped them. Before he pushed them down his legs, he kicked his boots off without touching the laces and stepped on the toes of his white socks to lift his feet out of them. Taking a deep breath, he pushed his pants and boxers down his thighs. He’d been naked with women before. He’d had that ill-fated thing with Sharon that lasted for about three months before fizzling out right after shit with the Accords and Tony hit the fan. The sex had been good, but there really wasn’t anything else there, definitely not enough to overcome the obstacles that had been in their path. Steve hadn’t fought hard for it and neither had she. Letting go of that relationship had been easy, and it made him wonder if he was incapable of feeling for a woman what he’d felt for Peggy.

Darcy’s eyes were steady as they moved down his torso. She lingered on his cock that was jutting out and up. Steve reached down and wrapped his right hand around it but kept his eyes on her in the mirror. Her dark pink lips parted as she exhaled sharply. The reaction elicited a surge of lust in him. “Now you,” he told her, anxious to see her creamy skin and the curves of her body that he’d felt when he’d fucked her.

She flicked her gaze up to meet his eyes in the mirror. Steve watched as that gaze dropped again, trickling over his shoulders and chest, down his arms, across his stomach. What did she see? Sometimes in these moments he felt so removed from his exterior. This isn’t me, he wanted to tell her. This is all a lie. I’m a fraud, he thought.

Before his mind could spiral down into that cesspool he’d become all too familiar with, he saw her reach down and cross her wrists right at the hem of the shirt. Curling her fingers around it, she lifted up and whipped the shirt off her body like she was ripping off a band-aid. Steve tightened his fingers around his dick as he looked at her in the mirror. She was perfection with breasts that would overflow in his hands, pebbled pink nipples begging for his mouth, and a waist that flared out into wide hips. Even the slope of her shoulders was beautiful, perfect. His free hand flexed as he thought about touching her.

His view of her pussy was blocked. Darcy’s thighs were pressed together, and she was standing close to the vanity, allowing him to only see a hint of the dark, curly hair that grew right above her slit. What he could see was glistening with evidence of what they’d done a few minutes ago. Steve’s jaw clenched when he thought about how he’d filled her up with his cum, how he’d rubbed it all over her pussy when he’d fucked her with his hand right after.

Darcy turned away from the mirror and toward the shower. Steve almost told her to turn back around so he could jerk off to her body when he saw her ass in the lower part of the mirror and it zipped his lips. She was leaning into the shower to check the water temperature and now all he could look at was that ass he’d held in his hands minutes before while they’d fucked against the wall. Except now that she was bent over, he could make out the darker pink of her pussy lips between those thick thighs.

Steve stroked his cock and said, “Fuck,” under his breath. She didn’t seem to hear his curse over the sound of the water. Gingerly, she stepped into the stall and left the door cracked open for him to follow. It was a nice shower—square with shades of blue tile lining the walls and floor. There was a small seat built into the wall on which she’d arranged various bottles of hair products and liquid soap.

He stepped inside and shut the door behind him, feeling like he could come from just watching the water run down her body in rivulets. Her hair was already soaked and she was smoothing it down under the spray with efficient, no-nonsense movements. Was she trying to pretend like he wasn’t a foot away with a hard cock that he’d fucked her with less than twenty minutes ago? Darcy turned around and leaned her face into the stream of water, running her hands over her eyes when she pulled back.

Moving between the showerhead and Darcy, Steve felt the hot water hit the back of his neck. He looked down at a very vulnerable and wet woman who was using a forearm to cover her nipples. “You’re, uh, ridiculously hot. I am not worthy,” Darcy said, looking up into his face.

Her comment made Steve give her a sad smile as he shook his head. “No, sweetheart. _I’m_ not worthy.” He brought his hands up and rested them on her hips before sliding them further north to her waist. The hand Darcy wasn’t using to hide those perfect tits from him reached up to wrap around his bicep as he moved his hands to her ribcage. His thumbs teased underneath her breasts. “Let me see you,” he whispered.

Darcy reluctantly removed her arm so he could take one tit in each of his hands. Steve lifted them, feeling their weight and way they yielded to his fingertips, before he rolled her nipples between her thumbs and forefingers. “Steve,” she gasped, squeezing his forearms with her hands.

She liked that. God, he loved when she said his name. It made him feel ten feet tall when he’d been feeling like a worthless piece of shit lately. Everyone—even Tony, especially Tony—was trying so hard to fix things and he was just sitting there like a lump waiting for them to realize it was all over. He’d let Thanos break him. He’d given up.

“You like that?” he whispered, leaning down to lick the water from her jawline.

“Uh, huh,” she agreed as she moved her hands to his chest. Steve shivered as she dragged her nails over his pecs and abs. He squeezed her tits again before shifting his mouth from her jaw to her lips, kissing her softly at first. The kiss morphed into something deeper and more desperate, something that involved tongues and teeth and her shuddering breath on his lips when he pulled back just enough to let her breathe. Instead of kissing him again, she whispered, “I want to make you come,” against his mouth, her bottom lip catching on his.

Steve felt a surge of lust pump through him as his cock jumped at her words. “You did a few minutes ago,” he told her.

“In my mouth,” she amended.

He had to let go of her with his left hand so he could grab the wall of the shower. The tile was cold against his palm, but he needed to anchor himself before that light-headed feeling she’d given him made him fall over. Before he could process how he felt about what she’d said, Darcy was dropping to her knees. “Darcy,” he said, blindly grabbing her hair at the same time she wrapped a hand around the base of his cock.

“Why’d you stop me before?” she asked, looking up at him. All he could see was her gorgeous face, slicked back hair, and full tits.

“Wanted to…” He trailed off and grunted as she took the head of his cock into her hot little mouth. “Wanted to fuck you,” Steve said, finishing his statement when he could make words again.

She sucked his tip before letting him fall out of her mouth with a pop. Steve watched in awe as she tilted her head and stuck her tongue out to lick the underside of his cock from base to tip, lingering on the sensitive skin there where it mushroomed into the head.

“Fuck, Darcy,” he muttered, curling his fingers into her wet hair.

She looked up at him with mischief in her eyes and it sent him reeling. She’d been wanton and ready to open her legs for him in the staircase and the public bathroom. And then she’d been sweet and almost shy about letting him see the body that had given him so much pleasure already. And now she was toying with him, playing the part of some seductress who would play him like a fiddle. “Doesn’t seem to take you long to get hard again,” she said, holding his cock like it was a fucking microphone right up against her lips.

“Yeah, with you it don’t,” he conceded, one hand on the shower wall and the other in her hair.

Darcy flicked her tongue over his tip, licking up whatever had already leaked out. If he could get harder, then he would have. “I think you could have let me do this and fucked me after.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Yeah.” Steve wanted whatever she wanted at this point. Besides, she was right. He could have let her get him off, could have come in her mouth and returned the favor while he waited for his dick to come back around. His plans just seemed to go out the window when he got around her. It was like there was this pulsing need to be inside her in his blood.

Satisfied that she’d won whatever debate they were having, Darcy guided him into her mouth again, sliding her soft lips down his shaft until he felt himself hit the back of her throat. It took everything Steve had not to buck his hips and go deeper. He didn’t want to gag her, though. She was so perfect right there on her knees for the second time that night, and this time he wasn’t about to tell her she couldn’t have exactly what she wanted even if it meant he couldn’t have a second go inside her tight little pussy.

“Fuck, Darcy,” he muttered, tilting his head back as she bobbed hers, taking him deeper each time until he felt the very tip of his cock bump up against the back of her throat. Steve grunted as she pulled back, sucking him as she did. When she guided him into her mouth the next time, there was pressure and tightness as the head of his cock hit the back of her throat and slipped down just a bit. Darcy made a little noise like she was suppressing her gag reflex, and Steve struggled not to pump into her. “Sweetheart,” he murmured, gathering her hair in his hand right at the back of her head. “That feels…”

She did it again and Steve’s knees almost gave out. Whatever words he was going to say just scattered as he focused on the sensation. She was taking him so deep all he could see were her fingers wrapped tightly on the base of his shaft and her lips pressed right up against them. He was on the larger side; the serum had worked its magic on every part of his body. However, it wasn’t too far from what he’d been packing before he volunteered for the program. Steve had never had a woman be quite this enthusiastic when sucking him off. All those others just faded into the background when he compared them to the goddess at his feet.

“Darcy, sweetheart… Oh, _god_...” The tile underneath his palm made a snapping noise and gave just a bit. He lifted his hand to a jagged crack splitting it in two.

She pulled her mouth off him but kept up the rhythm with her hand fisted around his girth. Her face was wet, saliva dripping from her chin, but her pupils were blown like she was getting almost as much out of this as he was. “Did you just break the shower wall?” she asked.

Steve gave a breathy laugh. “Maybe. Your mouth is incredible. _You’re_ incredible.”

Looking pleased with herself for making him lose himself, she went back to work on his dick, sucking him until his legs were shaking. He positioned his hand higher on the wall to avoid allowing himself the leverage to break another tile. Hopefully. Steve couldn’t make any promises with the way she was working his length, pressing her tongue up against the underside of his shaft, letting the barest edge of her teeth graze over the ridge of his cock head. It wasn’t pain and it wasn’t pleasure, but it straddled the line between them and made him want to grab her face and buck his hips.

“Sweetheart, sweetheart, sweetheart,” he chanted, tilting his head back and then looking down at her worshipping his cock. “Gonna come for you. Gotta move.”

She didn’t pull back as he’d intended. Steve wrapped his hand around hers at the base of his cock and squeezed to prevent himself from coming in her mouth. “I want it,” she said when she let him pop out from between her lips.

God, he was going to break another fucking tile as his fingertips dug into the wall. “Want me to come for you? In your mouth?”

She was sucking him again and it was getting harder to hold back. Just thinking of Darcy wanting him to…

“Give it to me,” she said, running her lips up the side of his cock before taking it in her mouth again.

Steve slammed his eyes closed and pulled her head closer. He worried he might be hurting her, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself as his balls tightened up and he pumped himself into her mouth. The orgasm felt like it went on forever, countless minutes passing as he unloaded himself. “Darcy,” he said on a sharp exhale when his lungs started working again. His hand was tight in her hair and the water from the showerhead was beating against his neck and shoulder blades. “Are you okay?” he asked, releasing her hair and using both hands to grab her upper arms.

She winced as she stood in front of him. “I’m great,” she said, putting a pretty smile on her face.

“I hurt you,” he said, smoothing his hands down her arms.

“No, the tile hurt me. My knees weren't made for this. Next time, we use a towel in here.” He watched in wonder as she licked her lips and wiped a hand over her chin. She’d swallowed everything. Steve felt a shot of lust rip through his body. Next time. Next time she swallowed his cock she wanted to kneel on a towel. _God_.

Dipping his head down, Steve kissed Darcy and turned so she was standing in the spray of the water. He moved back and urged her to turn and face away from him. She let him do whatever he wanted to her. She’d been letting him since that night in the stairwell and Steve had no idea what he’d done to deserve that level of trust from her. Once the water was hitting her chest and rolling down her body, he slipped his hands between her legs and spread her thighs.

“Steve!” She gasped when he entered her with two fingers, feeling the difference between their viscous, slick cum and the water from the shower.

“Shh,” he said with his mouth pressed to her ear. “I’m helping you clean up.”

This made her laugh, but didn’t relax her. Her body was vibrating and tight as a bowstring against him. God, he wanted to make her come again so badly. With gentle fingers, he let the water wash away the evidence of what they’d done in the hallway as he fingered her, rolling her clit between his fingers now and then. Darcy wrapped one hand around his wrist like a vice and reached back behind her with the other hand to wrap those fingers around his neck.

She was so hot, so responsive. Steve turned her around and rotated them out of the spray of water. The small bench seat was just behind the bend in her knees. Carelessly, he reached toward it and swiped his hand over the seat. The bottles clattered to the floor, bouncing over the tile around their feet.

Darcy gasped and said, “What—”

Steve didn’t let her finish the question. Instead, he pushed her back that final half step and forced her to sit with his hands on her shoulders.

“Steve,” she said when her ass hit the tile.

“Sorry if it’s cold, sweetheart.”

Darcy laughed and said, “It is.”

“I’ll make it all better,” he promised, kneeling before her.

“Oh, _god_ ,” she moaned when she realized exactly what he was going to do to her. He reached down and guided one of her legs over his shoulder, hooking it there and looking up at her face to make sure she was okay. She was flushed and her chest was heaving with her labored breathing. “Steve,” she said.

“Wanna taste you,” he whispered, leaning forward and taking one nipple into his mouth. With her leg hooked over his shoulder, her pussy was vulnerable. While he sucked on her other nipple, Steve slipped his fingers up to play with her, tracing her lips and working her clit.

She had both hands in his hair now, holding him against her chest. Like he’d want his mouth to be anywhere else but on her and buried between her gorgeous tits. Actually, he thought, maybe he did have better places to be. Kissing his way down her stomach, he slipped her other leg over his shoulder and used the leverage to pull her to the edge of the seat. Her sweet pussy that he’d had three times already was spread out before him.

Darcy shifted her hips. “You’re making me nervous,” she whispered.

“Why? I’m just looking at how perfect you are,” he said, the thoughts in his head spilling right out of his mouth without forethought or censure.

“Jesus, Steve,” she whispered, shifting again. “Put me out of my misery.”

Yeah, he would do just that. With her hands still buried in his hair like she owned him, he leaned down and licked all the way up her slit with the flat of his tongue. He repeated the move as she gasped, fingers tightening in his hair. “Tell me what you like,” he whispered against her before he opened his mouth and used his tongue to nudge her clit between his lips.

“Everything,” she said, digging her heels into his back. “I don’t know if I can come again.” It was a challenge if he’d ever heard one.

She was so responsive that being with her made him feel like nothing else existed. No world, no fuck-ups, just this gorgeous girl who was moaning his name. He felt insatiable as he opened his mouth wide and pushed his tongue deep into her pussy. His nose pressed up against her mound and the rough hairs there. Steve inhaled her scent, forgetting the water beating on his back, forgetting about what was happening beyond the door to her room.

He lost himself in pleasing her. Darcy’s groans and moans of appreciation drove him. She nearly came up off the bench when he curled two fingers up inside her while he moved his mouth back and forth over that little bundle of nerves situated right at the top of her slit. Her reaction was so intense that he kept at it, fucking her with two fingers while he licked up all her slick juices. He’d trail his tongue over her lips where he was penetrating her and then move his mouth back up to suck on her little clit.

Steve knew he was being merciless, but he wanted to feel her come all over his face. He wanted to go back to his empty room and smell her musky scent in his beard so he knew this wasn’t just a delusion or a fantasy.

“Steve, oh god, oh fuck, I…” She was pulling hard at his hair, but the faint bite of pain just turned him on more. If he wasn’t careful, he’d get hard again and try to take her a second time in just an hour. What the fuck was wrong with him? He’d never been like this before. Obviously, it was her. She was the new element.

He pulled his fingers out and covered her opening with his mouth, hungrily lapping at her pussy like he couldn’t get enough.

“I’m gonna… I’m gonna…” Her voice was breathless, more a moan than words. He shoved his index and middle fingers back inside her to the third knuckle and moved them, not so much in and out, but up and down, wiggling them inside her hot little channel as her muscles tensed up and tried to latch onto him, pull him even deeper. He wanted it to be his dick feeling that sensation, but he also wanted her to fall apart with his mouth clamped down on her.

Her moans were bouncing off the walls of the shower as he flicked his tongue back and forth on her clit. The feeling of his fingers and tongue working her must have set her off because she lifted up her hips and called out his name, her voice breaking on it.

Steve growled and lifted her up so he could open his mouth over her pulsating pussy, thrusting his tongue as deep as it could go. As she came down, she released the death grip she’d had on his hair. “Oh, god. I’m sorry. I… Did I…”

He kissed the inside of her thigh and settled her ass back on the edge of the bench seat. “No, you didn’t hurt me. You can’t.”

“I think I pulled a chunk of your hair out,” she said.

Steve smiled and sat back on his haunches, letting her legs slip off his wide shoulders. “Nah, sweetheart. You’re okay.”

“Uh, I’m better than that. I don’t think I can walk.”

He pushed himself up to his feet and stood over her limp body. “Yeah? You need my help?”

“I think you’ve done more than your share for the night,” she assured him, a blush creeping over her fair cheeks.

Tenderness wormed its way into his heart, but Steve shoved it out. There was no room for that now. This was fucking. This was just a way to feel something, have fun, forget about what had happened. She needed it as much as he did, so that made it okay.

“Come on,” he said, bending down and picking her up. Darcy’s arm wrapped around his neck as he cradled her to his chest, one arm bracing her back and the other hooked behind her knees.

“Steve!” she squealed as he picked her up and stepped out of the shower. She squealed again when he sat her ass on the cold bathroom vanity so he could turn the water off and grab two towels from the shelf over the toilet. Tossing one to her, he dried himself off hastily and then helped her dry herself. It was difficult not to linger on the softness of her skin and the way her nipples were distended and begging for his mouth.

He swallowed and thought about carrying her over to her bed and going down onto it with her. He thought about slipping between her thighs and sliding his cock right up inside her again. It’d be different in a bed with her flat on her back and at his mercy. Steve shook his head and tossed the towels in the floor before picking her up again.

He did carry her over to the bed, and he did lay her down right in the center of the rumpled sheets and blanket. What he didn’t do? Lie down in it with her despite how much he wanted to. Instead, he returned to the bathroom and pulled on his pants. When he walked back into the living area, she’d wrapped a sheet around her body. All he could see were her sexy calves and her head and shoulders. She was so gorgeous his throat tightened.

“Okay?” he asked in a rough voice as he pulled his shirt over his head.

“Mmm, hmm,” she replied.

God, he needed to get the fuck out of her room before he did something he’d regret. “You need anything before I go?” He walked over to the door and slipped his boots on, struggling with the left one for a few seconds because his hands were shaking as he considered what he’d do if she said she needed him to come to bed. Would he? Probably.

She sat up and looked around the corner of the countertop that separated her living area from the small kitchenette. “No, I’m okay.”

“Okay,” he agreed, running a hand through his wet hair.

“Thanks,” she said, “for tonight.”

“Yeah,” Steve agreed. “I’ll, uh, see you around.” He turned and put his hand on her doorknob.

Darcy’s sweet voice said, “Yeah,” right as he opened the door and fled like some fucking coward.

He shut her door with a soft click and looked to his left. When he glanced to the right out of the habit of assessing his surroundings, he saw Natasha standing in the middle of the hallway watching him. Fuck, he thought, wishing he could drop into the floor. She wasn’t stupid; she’d know exactly what was going on.

“Steve,” she said, gathering herself and walking over to the room two doors down from Darcy’s. “I see you were paying Darcy a visit.”

“Yeah. What about it?” he almost growled, dropping his gaze to the floor at her feet.

“You stay for a shower?” she asked, her brows lifting up.

Steve ran his hand through his wet hair. Damn, this looked really bad. There was no way to explain away what he’d done other than admitting the truth. He wasn’t ready to do that. “Yeah,” he replied, turning away and walking in the opposite direction.

“Be careful,” she called after him.

He looked over his shoulder. “I’m fine,” he told Nat.

“Be careful with her,” she clarified. “She’s been through a lot.”

Steve shook his head. “She’s fine. Stay out of my business.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has left a comment or word of encouragement to let me know they're reading. You all are great!


	6. Chapter 6

> _”Maybe fueling the fire means I’m definitely crazy. Guess I’m willing to burn if you’re the one who comes to save me. And the thought, it follows me around every day, that you’re dangerous but I can’t resist it anyway.” - Sinead Harnett (Body)_

Darcy rolled over in bed and pressed her face into the pillow. She’d fallen into a deep sleep after he’d left. That was rare these days when the grief and anxiety kept her up late into the night or made her shoot out of bed before the sun rose in the morning, gasping for air and reaching out to grab onto dust or ashes or whatever the fuck everyone she loved had disintegrated into.

Not last night, though. She’d slept like a baby, even though her heart had felt heavy after he’d left. Darcy didn’t have sex like the sex she’d had with Steve. Maybe she could have explained away the first two times as being extra hot because it was semi-public, but him knocking on her door and making her come three times in the span of an hour—no, that wasn’t really something that happened in her life.

Glancing at her phone to see what time of the morning it was, she shoved her face back into the pillow and groaned. She’d been so shameless last night. How could she live that down? How could she actually sit in the same room with him and other people without wanting to sink into the floor or without turning red in the face?

Darcy rolled out of bed and clenched her thighs together. She was just a little tender. Not enough that she wouldn’t jump at the chance to get back on the ride known as Steve Rogers, though. She brushed out her messy hair in the bathroom mirror and tried not to think about him eating her out in the shower. The shampoo and conditioner bottles were still lying on the tile floor of the stall and the damp towels were wadded up on the bathroom floor. She focused on brushing out the knots from going to bed with her hair wet and then brushing her teeth.

By the time she was reasonably presentable and convinced that she wasn’t going to walk out the door and walk right into Steve Rogers, she slipped out into the hallway in search of food. Darcy nearly screamed when she saw Natasha Romanov in all her blonde and gorgeous glory standing two doors down with arms crossed and her shoulder leaning against the wall. She smiled and pushed off so she could take a few steps closer.

“Good morning,” she said.

Darcy looked behind her and then back at the woman. “Uh, morning?”

“Hungry?” Natasha asked, raising her eyebrows.

“Oh, uh, maybe?” Darcy had spoken to Natasha in group settings. The woman was friendly with her when they happened to pass by each other or end up in the small communal kitchen at the same time. She wouldn’t say she was Natasha’s friend, though. Natasha seemed to have her hands full trying to keep some of the other Avengers from self-destructing.

Natasha smiled again and stepped closer. “Good. Let’s go get something to eat. Have you tried the bagel place three blocks up? They’re open most days.”

“Uh, no,” Darcy replied, watching Natasha walk past her.

The other woman looked over her shoulder and tilted her head toward the elevator. “Come on. Let’s go. My treat.”

* * *

They ended up at a corner table in a surprisingly busy bakery. Darcy had ordered a coffee and a bagel and lox. Natasha was eating some whole wheat bagel with oats on top that was slathered with hummus. The blonde took a drink of her black coffee and leveled her eyes on Darcy. Looking back at her, Darcy just knew her secret was out.

She closed her eyes and scrunched up her face as if she was in pain. “You know,” she told Nat.

This made Nat chuckle as she sat her coffee cup on the table. “Know what, Darcy?”

Shaking her head, Darcy said, “Probably everything since you’re the super spy.”

“Well, I do know that you stole that box of microwave popcorn from the kitchen last week.”

Darcy frowned. “How?”

“The entire hallway smells like it when you pop it in your room.”

Cutting to the chase, Darcy said, “You know about Steve. Did he tell you?”

Nat raised her brows. “What about Steve?”

“Cut the bullshit,” Darcy snapped. As soon as the words were out, she slapped her hand over her mouth and widened her eyes.

Instead of being offended, Nat smiled and shook her head. “I saw him leaving your place last night. Looked like he might have used your shower. I didn’t know his was broken.”

“Look, I don’t really want to talk about this. If you wanted to buy me breakfast so I’d spill his dirty little secrets, then you’ve got the wrong girl. I don’t—”

“Darcy,” Nat said, interrupting her. “Calm down. I’m not asking for you to tell me anything. I want to know if you’re okay.”

Pushing the rest of her bagel around on her plate, Darcy sighed and cleared her throat. “I’m fine. I’m a big girl and can take care of myself.”

The two women sat in silence for several minutes. Darcy busied her hands by sipping at her coffee. Finally, Nat said, “He’s hurting, you know.”

“Everyone is,” Darcy agreed.

“No, he’s—” Nat shook her head when Darcy looked up. “He’s been through a lot in the past few years. What happened a few months ago—it messed his head up. It’s like he’s given up.”

“Okay.” Darcy dropped her eyes to the table, feeling sick to her stomach. She’d fucked the guy three times, but she didn’t even know him. She didn’t know who he was or what he’d been through. She didn’t even know if him dropping by for a booty call was out of character.

“Who started it?”

She looked up at Nat. “Who started what?”

Nat gave her a look like she should know better. She really should know better; the question was a stupid one.

“I don’t know. I think we were both willing participants the first time even though he didn’t exactly ask. I mean, I knew what would happen if I left the room. I wanted it to happen.”

“The first time?”

“Uh, last month. The second time... Well, he asked and I said yeah.” Darcy looked up to Nat. “Last night he stopped by and I… I’d been thinking about him for days. Look, if you’re trying to make sure this is consensual, then don’t worry about it. It’s definitely consensual.”

“This has been going on for a month?” Nat seemed surprised.

“Well, not really. I mean, technically.” She lifted a hand and rubbed at her eyes. “He’s not taking advantage.”

“Are you?” Nat’s question was sharp and that surprised Darcy.

“No! God, no. If he… if he didn’t— I mean, I’m not the one asking him to fuck me or whatever. He’s the one that—”

Nat held up a hand. “You don’t have to explain. It’s okay, Darcy. I’m just trying to watch out for him. And you, too.”

“Sooooo, him messing around… Is that not his M.O. or something?”

Nat picked at her bagel and said, “Yeah, that’s definitely not his M.O. It’s like he’s been in some sort of trance since the incident. This isn’t him.”

Her words made Darcy’s gut twist. She could read between those lines. The man who was seeking her out for sex was broken and not acting like himself. If he wasn’t fucked in the head, then he probably wouldn’t have touched her. She pushed away the rest of her bagel as her appetite disappeared. “I see.”

“Don’t try to make this about you, Darcy,” Nat warned.

“I hear you. You don’t have to tell me that he wouldn’t have even thought about me if he was in his right mind. Message received.”

“Stop it. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying if he hurts you, then it isn’t really him. This isn’t the Steve I know.”

“It’s nothing. I’m fine. I shouldn’t have even come to New York. It was a mistake.”

“Darcy,” Nat said, her voice stern enough to make Darcy raise her eyes. “We all want you here. Thor adores you. Clint said he wouldn’t know what to do if you weren’t around to watch Lila. I saw you get Tony’s coffee last week. You kept bringing him decaf so he’d fall asleep because he needed it. Even Rocket was asking about you this morning.”

“No, he wasn’t,” Darcy scoffed.

“He was. He told Bruce to send the bombshell with the tunes up to the landing pad.”

Darcy laughed softly and shook her head. “He’s strange.”

“He is, but he _likes_ you. We all do. So, when I say that Steve isn’t himself, I’m not saying that it’s your fault or that it means you don’t matter. I’m just saying, he’s messed up. If he weren’t feeling guilty or hopeless or whatever he’s feeling… well, then he might actually ask you on a date instead of sneaking out of your room at midnight.”

“I’m not… I’m not Captain America’s type, I don’t think,” Darcy murmured, the smile falling off her face.

“His name is Steve. And who says you aren’t?”

“Me. I say I’m not. We’re just… whatever. Just… trying to feel okay.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” Nat replied.

“Yeah, I guess. Look, I don’t really want to talk about this anymore. I’m starting to feel like shit about it, not that I didn’t already.”

“Be careful with him, Darcy. He’s been through a lot.”

“Hey, I’m just along for the ride. He’s driving.”

Nat laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of.”

* * *

Scott Lang was a dork and that made Darcy like him more. He’d shown up with one of those wheeled suitcases, a duffle bag, and some extreme excitement over seeing Steve Rogers. He greeted Steve like an old friend. Steve was gracious, but it was obvious he didn’t know Scott all that well and didn’t know how to handle such enthusiasm. Scott got even more excited when he saw Bruce. The two men ran out of the lounge to put their heads together in the lab like two teenage girls holding a teeny-bopper magazine with a spread on their biggest crush. Tony would have joined them, but he was passed out on a barstool next to Darcy. She’d been playing bartender for him that evening, pouring slowly and trying to divert his attention from the scotch he insisted on drinking. Her tactics must have worked because he’d fallen asleep with his head cradled in his arms on the bartop after just three drinks.

“Good job,” Nat said, walking around to stand behind the bar. She poured herself a glass of red wine before holding the bottle out to Darcy in question.

“Sure,” Darcy replied.

Nat pulled a second glass out and poured two servings of wine into it before sliding the glass over to Darcy. “I’m impressed with your babysitting skills.”

Darcy gave her a wry smile. “I’ve been perfecting them since I left school. Workaholic scientists are my specialty. Tony is no match for me.”

The blonde smiled back as they both drank deeply. The wine was dry but fruity. Darcy wasn’t really a huge fan of wine, preferring cocktails or a good old-fashioned beer, but she liked Nat and wanted to be on the woman’s good side. Besides, she could use a drink. She was upset with herself for sitting on her couch the previous night and waiting for Steve Rogers to knock on her door. He didn’t. She spent the rest of the night and all of that day being angry at herself for making it into something it wasn’t. Steve had responsibilities and a life outside of dropping by her place for a booty call. Besides, if she was that hard up for an orgasm, she should have the balls to go to him and initiate. She just couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that would make her seem desperate and pathetic.

Nebula was standing in the doorway, watching them with wary eyes. Darcy was more than a little scared of the silent woman. She suspected she was volatile and violent. Being Thanos’ adoptive daughter didn’t really help matters either. “Hey, Nat,” Darcy said, “can you hand me another glass?”

Nat smiled like she knew exactly what Darcy was trying to do and pulled a glass from behind the bar. Darcy filled it with what was left of the bottle of wine and pushed the glass across the bar before settling back into her stool. When she looked up at Nebula, the woman’s eyes moved from the glass to Darcy. Darcy gave her a thin smile and nodded her head.

Nat leaned forward and rested her forearms on the bartop. “She’s not here to make friends.”

“You sound like you know,” Darcy replied.

“I do. I’ve been there. It’s hard to be around people when someone has taken your humanity away.”

“That fucking sucks, dude.”

Nat laughed softly. “It’s life.” Looking over at Tony, Nat reached up and slid his glass away from his arm. He was snoring, but it wasn’t very loud. “How do you feel?”

Darcy sipped at her wine and sighed. “Fine.”

“Steve?”

“What about him?”

“I haven’t seen him today,” Nat said.

“He was here earlier when Scott Lang arrived. Didn't stay long. He, uh, seems to not want to show his face right after.” After saying it, Darcy felt a little sick to her stomach. She was good enough to fuck, but not good enough to talk to him in public. Whatever. Next time he came calling, she’d shut the door in his face. _If_ he came calling. Every time always seemed like it was the last.

“You remember what I said, Darcy. He’s not himself. He’s still trying to figure out how to accept this.”

Nat’s advice made Darcy want to laugh, but nothing about it was funny. “Honestly, Nat, I think Steve is the only one around here who has accepted what’s happened. Everyone else is, like, trying to reverse it, fight it, change it, get revenge.”

Nat took a drink of her wine and rested her elbows on the bar in front of Darcy. “It’s the way we cope. We’re all so used to… doing. It’s hard to sit back and watch. That’s not Steve. I’ve known the guy for years. He’s had my back for years. What he’s doing right now—that’s not acceptance. He’s just giving in, giving up.”

“You’re worried about him.” It was a statement, not a question.

“I am.” Nat sighed. “Sometimes I’m more worried about him than Tony. I mean, Tony is at least expressing himself. Steve is just… silent nowadays.” She paused for a moment before saying, “Has he talked to you about what happened, about how he feels?”

Darcy snorted. “Hell, no. I don’t think he’s all that interested in talking to me. I think I’m just… convenient.”

“He likes you,” Nat assured her. “He wouldn’t be dropping by your room if he didn’t.”

“I’m an available female who lives one floor down from him. I’m convenient and willing.”

“You like him, too.”

Darcy rolled her eyes and gulped down some of the wine in her glass. “Doesn’t everyone? Scott Lang was creaming his jeans over Steve. He kept asking Clint where Captain America is. Apparently, he helped Steve and company out a couple years back.”

“Yeah, you could say that,” Nat said with a wry smile. “Where’s he at? The lab with Bruce?”

“Yeah. I almost woke Tony up, but it took me three hours to trick him into falling asleep. He’ll be rested in the morning.”

“Tony has some technology that might complement what Scott has from Hank Pym.”

Darcy looked into Nat’s eyes and asked, “Do you think it will help?”

Nat sighed. “I don’t know. It’s a long shot.” She glanced around the empty lounge and added, “I guess I should go find Steve. Make sure he’s okay. Unless you want to.”

“Uh, no. I don’t think he’d appreciate me trying to be his mother or his therapist,” Darcy replied.

“He’s been on the landing pad with Rocket for the last two hours.”

Darcy and Nat both looked up to see Nebula standing a few feet away at the end of the bar with the glass of wine Darcy had poured for her in her hand. Nat recovered first and said, “Those two are an odd pair.”

Nebula shrugged and knocked back half the glass of wine like it was water. “Rocket likes to talk and Steve Rogers just listens. He’s an audience. It pleases Rocket.”

“Rocket does like to run his mouth,” Darcy agreed, watching Nebula down the rest of her wine. “You want another drink?”

Nebula leveled her dark eyes on Darcy. “Steve Rogers watches you when you aren’t paying attention.”

Nat coughed and turned to grab another bottle of wine from behind her.

“He watches _me_?” Darcy asked. “When?”

“Yesterday when you left for food he followed both of you and waited across the street.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Nat replied, pulling the cork out and holding the bottle out to Nebula. “I can’t believe I didn’t catch him.”

The blue-skinned woman offered her glass and let Nat refill it. Darcy said, “Are you spying on him?”

Nebula hesitated for a moment before saying, “No. I was following you two.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to know where you were going. You’ve never left with each other before.”

Darcy widened her eyes. “Oh, okay. Umm, did you want to come with us next time?”

Nebula tilted her head and considered the offer. “Sure, you’ll have breakfast with us,” Nat said. “Tomorrow morning. Meet us in the kitchen at nine-thirty.”

“And if I don’t?” Nebula said as she narrowed her eyes.

Darcy smiled. “Then you’ll miss out on some amazing food.”

* * *

Darcy looked down at the wallet on the bar and wondered at the strange direction her life had taken. A few years ago she was in school trying to figure out what to do with the rest of her life. Now she was sitting in a private lounge in Stark Tower with the wallet of Tony Stark himself sitting in front of her. Nat had enlisted the help of none other than Steven fucking Rogers to lift and carry a sleeping Tony off to an actual bed.

Steve had not thrown a single glance her way as he carefully lifted Tony over his shoulder and toted him off with Nat leading the way. Nebula had wandered off several minutes before, after finishing her wine and refusing to commit to breakfast. The wallet must have fallen when Steve picked Tony up, but no one had noticed until the trio was long gone, leaving Darcy sitting alone in the lounge as she wondered what to do with it. She couldn’t exactly slip it under his door and didn’t even know how to get to his room in the penthouse. Her security clearance probably didn’t extend quite that far.

She decided to take the elevator up to the lab and see if Bruce was still talking to Scott, but hadn’t found the energy to carry out the task. Bruce might be able to help, though. She wouldn’t have thought twice about knocking on Thor’s door, but he was who-knew-where as he tried to find his people. Supposedly, he could make his very own rainbow bridges nowadays. Darcy didn’t like that he’d left, but she couldn’t exactly make him stick around for her. He hadn’t even stayed for Jane, and Darcy felt like nothing compared to Jane Foster. It was days like this that she wondered why that snap of the fingers had taken someone who might actually be able to help instead of her useless ass. The world really wasn’t fair.

Hearing footsteps enter the room, she looked up and saw Steve standing by the open door. “Hey,” he said softly.

She picked up Tony’s wallet and held it up. “Looking for this?”

Steve’s brows drew together. “No. What’s that?”

“Tony’s wallet. I assumed you came back to look for it.”

Steve cleared his throat and crossed the space between them, stopping at the end of the bar where Nebula had left her empty glass. “I was looking for you,” he said.

Oh. _Oh_. Was this going to be one of _those_ nights? She felt a thrill of anticipation as she remembered how good he was capable of making her feel in the moment. It was quickly buried by that sick feeling in her stomach that told her she was being used just like Nat had warned her. “I’ve been here for hours,” she said, pinching the stem of her wineglass and turning it in circles on the bartop.

“I know you have,” he said, walking over and sliding onto the stool beside her. He looked at her hand on the glass.

Darcy pulled her hands off the bar and laid them in her lap. “I’m not hard to find,” she said, determined to make him work for it.

Steve sighed and rested her forearms on the edge of the bar. “No, you’re not.” His voice was soft, almost a whisper. “Hey, thanks for taking care of Tony.”

“I know how to handle those science-mania types. You just have to distract them and they fall right into line.”

He chuckled and hung his head, looking at the wallet on the table between them. “You worked with Jane Foster, right?”

“Right.”

“You met Thor pretty early on, then? Before I met him?”

“When he plopped out of the sky.” She glanced over at Steve and gave him a small smile when he shifted his eyes over to her face. “I kinda used a Taser on him and knocked him out.”

She closed her eyes when Steve gave her another soft laugh. “Yeah, I know. He told me. He, uh, thinks the world of you and Jane.”

“Jane’s gone.” Darcy felt dead inside when she said it.

“Yeah,” Steve said. “Lot of people are gone.”

Darcy leaned forward and propped her elbow on the bar, resting her head in her open hand as she turned toward Steve more fully. “Who’d you lose?”

He wiped a hand over his face and said, “So many people. Just like you. I heard you tell Thor your parents are gone.”

“My dad was going to retire next year. I thought my mom was going to murder him when he did since he bugged the shit out of her when he took days off work.”

“Your brother?”

“David? Yeah, he’s gone, too, I think. I mean… I don’t know for sure. No one saw him…” She sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, Steve had turned more fully toward her. Darcy chewed on her lower lip before saying, “His apartment was empty and locked from the inside. It doesn’t take a detective, you know?”

“I’m sorry, Darcy.”

“It isn’t your fault.”

“It is. I didn’t stop him.”

Darcy rolled her eyes and kicked a foot out to dig the toe of her shoe into Steve’s calf. “Shut up, you idiot. You aren’t the only person in the world. The way I hear it, it was inevitable. Tony said he had the Time Stone thingy. That means if shit didn’t go his way, he could have just laid it down, flipped it, and reversed it.”

Steve’s brows furrowed. “What?”

Darcy gave him a sad smile. “I’m quoting Missy Elliot.” Pausing she said, “You don’t know who that is, do you?”

“Oh,” Steve said. “The rap musician from the turn of the century. I’m not a fan of her music. Sorry.”

She wasn’t sure if it was the fact that Steve Rogers knew who Missy Elliot was or if it was because he called her a rap musician from the turn of the century, but his comment made her giggle and shake her head at him. “What do you like if you don’t like Missy Elliot?”

“The Beatles.”

“Respectable. I guess you can’t go wrong there.”

“Teddy Pendergrass.”

Darcy raised her brows. “Really? A little seductive R&B?”

Steve shrugged and she could see a faint blush creeping over his cheeks. “I like his voice.”

“Very classy, Steve. Ain’t nothing wrong with a little Teddy Pendergrass. You just surprised me.”

They both looked away for a moment. Steve brought her gaze back to his face when he said, “I’m sorry about your family, Darcy.”

“You don’t have anything to apologize for. Really. Tell me who you lost.”

He shook his head.

“You don’t want to talk about it?” Darcy asked.

“It’s not important. Won’t change anything.”

“Tell me.”

Steve pulled in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Why?”

“Because I want to know. Come on, Steve. Commiserate with me.”

“Wanda and Vision are gone. They were Avengers.”

She nodded. “Yeah. I saw them in articles, on TV sometimes.”

“Vision was murdered by Thanos right in front of me. Wanda tried to stop it, but… she turned to dust right after. T’Challa fought with us that day. He gave us his personal King’s Guard, his people, to fight Thanos. He’s gone.” Steve looked away, his eyes going off to the side. “Sam Wilson.”

“He was the one with the wings, right?”

Steve’s jaw twitched. “Yeah.” He gave another deep sigh and said, “This kid that Tony recruited. His name was Peter. He, uh, he died on that other planet with Tony.”

“Dust?”

“Yeah, dust.”

“That’s a lot of people, Steve.”

“Yeah.”

Darcy wanted to reach out and take his hand, but she didn’t know him like that. She’d sucked his dick on her knees in the shower and he’d fucked her against various walls in the building, but she still didn’t know him well enough to give comfort by touching his hand. God, what the hell was she doing with her life?

Steve leveled his gaze on her again. His eyes looked unbearably sad, but his mouth was set in a stern line. “Rocket missed you today.”

“I heard you were up there helping him.”

“Yeah? Who said that?”

Darcy forced a little smile. “Nebula. She seemed less murder-y today. She even gulped down a couple glasses of wine with me and Nat. It was weird, but… good, I guess. We might even have plans for breakfast in the morning. Weird, right?”

“Be careful.”

“Nat knows how to kick ass. Honestly, I don’t think Nebula’s all that bad. She reminds me of a foster kid who hurts people before someone can hurt her.” When Steve didn’t reply, Darcy said, “So, how was Rocket?”

“He was… Rocket.” Steve chuckled. “He’s a talking raccoon, but no one seems to notice.”

“Oh, I noticed.”

“He showed up with a talking and walking tree.”

Darcy widened her eyes. “No shit? Like, a tree that looked like a human with legs and arms and a face?”

“Pretty much. I think its name was Groot.” Steve winced. “I think I introduced myself to the tree.”

This made Darcy laugh. “I wish I could have seen that. Did the tree just…”

Steve’s face fell and Darcy’s wasn’t far behind. “Yeah,” he replied, “dust.”

“Damn.”

“But like I said, Rocket missed you. I think he likes you better than me.”

“It’s good to be missed, I guess,” Darcy replied.

Steve looked away before glancing back over at her. “I… I guess I should take Tony’s wallet to his room.”

“Yep,” she agreed, wondering if he was looking for an invitation to come back to her place. Darcy wanted to give it to him, but her pride was preventing her.

“I missed you today,” he said under his breath.

“You avoid me,” Darcy replied.

Steve closed his eyes and said, “I don’t know what I’m doing, Darcy.”

When she said, “Neither do I, Steve,” he opened them to look at her.

“I’m sorry.”

“What are you apologizing for?”

He gave her a pathetic smile that was more sad than happy. “Everything. I don’t even know.”

Darcy swallowed and said, “Maybe I’ll see you after you return Tony’s wallet.”

“You gonna be here?”

She shook her head. “Probably not.”

He nodded once and swiped the wallet from the bar before leaving without a goodbye. Darcy wondered if her message had been received or not. It was a quarter past ten. She’d give him until eleven before she went to bed. She wasn’t going to sit there all night and wait for something that was never going to happen.


	7. Chapter 7

> _”He swims in my eyes by the bed. Pour myself over him, moon spilling in. And I wake up alone.” - Amy Winehouse (Wake Up Alone)_

Steve tossed Tony’s wallet on the table by his door and walked further into the messy penthouse. There was trash on the kitchen floor and unwashed coffee mugs everywhere. They needed to get someone in there to clean the place. A month ago, Natasha had hired two women who still worked on the janitorial staff in the building to come on their off hours. Tony’s housekeeper was… gone. Steve wasn’t even sure why they bothered. Tony was going to be Tony regardless of whether there were clothes strewn all over his living room or not.

He stepped into the doorway of the bedroom and saw Tony sprawled over the bedspread right where he and Nat had left him. His chest moved up and down with each breath, and a slight snore was coming from his nose. The glow of the arc reactor could be seen through the thin material of his white T-shirt. Sighing, Steve turned around and made his way back to the door.

It was all so tiring and never-ending. War after war, threat after threat. Maybe it was all over now that what felt like the final blow had fallen. Half the universe was dead. Society was crumbling at the edges. There were protests outside Stark Tower almost every day. People wanted to know why the Avengers hadn’t stopped the disappearance of the people they loved. Some of the world’s governments were in the dark, and the ones who knew what had happened weren’t willing to write that press release. Hope was important; it kept people going.

Steve felt like he didn’t have any hope left in him. It was just a matter of time before Tony killed himself with alcohol and caffeine. Thor was gone again, and Steve wondered if he’d be back this time. Last time he’d left, he’d been gone for years. Thanos was still out there and in possession of all the Infinity Stones. Nothing was stopping him from destroying entire worlds with a thought.

Shutting Tony’s door, Steve thought about how he’d never felt so helpless. Even before the serum, he’d had some control, some ability to fight back and _win_. It seemed useless to even try to stand against Thanos now. So many were gone already. Steve knew it could get worse, but he couldn’t seem to find that fire that had driven him before. It made him feel dead inside.

The only thing that made him feel anything nowadays was thinking about getting Darcy Lewis alone. As he thought about sitting there beside her at the bar and talking about who they’d lost, he took the elevator down several floors. He hadn’t intended on going to her place, but he turned the corner to her hallway. Steve knew messing around with her wasn’t right. She was kind and smart and sweet. She deserved better than what he could give, but that didn’t mean he didn’t think of her as the only thing pleasurable in his life after _the incident_.

Steve stopped to adjust himself in his pants. Just the thought of being inside her again was making his cock hard. He stopped outside her door and looked at the room number in raised silver numerals affixed with tiny screws. She’d seemed a little unhappy with him when he’d searched her out in the lounge, but by the time he’d left with Tony’s wallet, Steve hasn’t sure whether she wanted to see him or not.

His mind buzzed with thoughts of how she’d tasted and what her hot mouth had felt like on his dick. Of how her body felt pressed up against his as he slid up inside her. Of her lips and her breath and her hair and her blue eyes looking right inside of him. He shouldn’t knock on her door, but he was going to. Half of him hoped she’d gone to bed and would ignore his desperation, but the other half needed to touch her more than anything. It felt like an addiction, something he should be wary of, but he just couldn’t seem to care enough to stay away. Or maybe he just couldn’t find the strength to do the right thing anymore.

Pressing his hands to the wall on either side, he leaned forward and knocked his forehead on the door twice. He wasn’t forceful, so the knock was muffled and soft. She might not hear it. There, he thought, that could be the compromise with himself. He’d knock softly and if she happened not to hear, then he’d leave her be.

The surge of desire and anticipation almost knocked him off his feet when she opened the door in a T-shirt and nothing else. She did want this after all. Had she been standing on the other side waiting just like he’d been? Steve didn’t say anything. Instead, he stepped into her body and lifted her up with his hands on her ass. Her legs wrapped around his waist at the same moment he tilted his head back to kiss her lips. The flavor of the red wine she’d had was faint. Mostly, he could just taste her—that unmistakable flavor he knew he wouldn’t easily forget. Her hands were in his hair and her breasts were pressed up against his chest. Why hadn’t it been this way with any other woman? Why her? Why now?

Reaching one hand out to guide himself along the wall, he stepped further into her place until he could see the bed over her shoulder. She was still kissing him, her tongue sweeping through his mouth and bringing back some very fond memories of a couple nights before when she’d made him come all over that tongue. It wasn’t until that moment he realized his hands were on her bare ass. Steve moved one hand down to touch her pussy, finding nothing but soft skin and slick juices when the tips of his fingers dipped inside her. Darcy bucked against him, inhaling a sharp breath.

All of it made Steve’s control unravel. He laid her down on the mattress, following with his body so he never left the cradle of her thighs. His lips were on her warm neck and his nose was buried in her hair. He inhaled deeply, feeling surrounded by her. The world fell away; reality faded until it was her and him in this bed. It was what he craved, what he’d come here for.

Pushing himself up with one of his arms, he knelt between her legs and placed both hands on the collar of her shirt. Darcy gasped when he ripped it right down the center to reveal her full breasts and pebbled, pink nipples. His gaze dropped to the thatch of hair at the top of her slit, but the dim lighting and angle didn't let him see her perfect pussy right below. She was shrugging off the ripped shirt, but he felt like he was in a trance as he reached down and ran the fingers of his right hand over the lips of her pussy, feeling how wet she already was.

“Steve…” Darcy’s voice was more a moan than anything else, but she’d said his name and that galvanized his cock as if he hadn’t been hard as a rock already. He looked up into her eyes and saw her pupils blown wide, her eyes dark with desire. She hadn’t said his name to make him stop; she’d said it to make him continue.

He wanted to taste her undiluted from the water of the shower, but he also wanted to unbutton his pants and pull his cock out. Steve looked up to see one of his hands on her breast, squeezing her and dragging his palm over her nipple. The other hand was still rubbing her pussy lips as she writhed beneath him like she was in heat. He’d been short-changing himself and her with the furtive fucks in public places. All this time, he could have had her like this, in bed. Her body laid out before him and no one to interrupt.

“Wanna see you,” she said, lifting up just a bit so she could hook her fingers in the waistband of his pants.

Steve growled as a shot of what felt like electricity zapped through his body. Anything for her, he thought as he pulled his shirt off and threw it in the floor. She had him unbuttoned by that time, so all he had to do was unzip and gracelessly struggle to get his pants and boxers off without leaving the cradle between her smooth legs. He finally gave up when the pants got bunched up around his ankles because he’d forgotten all about his shoes.

“Fuck,” he muttered, turning to look at the curves of her body and her smooth skin. Acting on instinct, he moved down so he could smell the musky scent of her pussy. His cock wanted relief, but he also wanted her on his tongue. Steve imagined her kneeling above him and how it would be to have her pussy all over his face with her knees pressed into the mattress on either side of his head. His eyes almost rolled back in his head at the fantasy. For now, though, this was enough. In fact, it was more than enough.

“Oh, god, _Steve_ ,” she whispered when he opened his mouth and covered her slit with it, shoving his tongue as deep into her channel as he could. Darcy arched her body and grabbed the back of his head.

“Mmmm,” he moaned, urging her to hold his face right up against her pussy while he ate her out. She was so wet and his mouth was just making her more so. She tasted so good, and Steve was sure he could never get enough as he swiped his tongue up her slit and along the side of her clit. The touch made Darcy buck her hips up and push his head down. It was just what he wanted. He wanted her to use him for her pleasure. He was good for something and making her come was it.

“That feels so good,” she whispered. When Steve glanced up her body, all he saw were tits and protruding nipples because her back was arched and her shoulders were pressed into the mattress.

He opened his mouth and licked into her pussy again, moving his tongue back and forth before sucking her clit between her lips. “You taste so fucking good,” he told her, his voice so deep it was almost a growl. “Tell me what you like.”

Her laugh was breathy. “Everything.” He pressed his middle finger deep into her and then added his index finger on the second pass. She was so lubed up and hot for him that he could have added a third finger without much trouble. “Steeeeve, oh my god…”

He loved it when she said his name like that. Like she didn’t want to say it, but she didn’t really have a fucking choice because what he was doing felt so amazing. Steve pressed his tongue to her clit and shook his head back and forth as he curled his fingers inside her to hit that spot that made her toes curl. This is power, he thought. I’m not useless; I can make Darcy Lewis come with my mouth and my hand. He wanted her to scream for him, beg him for it.

Steve dipped his left shoulder down so he could slip her leg over it and feel the press of her heel in the center of his back as he flicked the tip of his tongue over her clit. “Steve, Steve, Steve,” she murmured his name like a prayer as her thighs started to shake.

He growled and thrust his fingers as deep as they would go while he lapped up her juices and sucked the protruding bundle of flesh that made her hands tighten in his hair and her hips lift up off the bed. “Come for me, sweetheart,” he whispered against her soaking wet pussy, curling his fingers up again. He blew a stream of air on her clit before taking it between his lips and licking it with his hot tongue. The sensation must have pushed Darcy over the edge because the muscles in her thighs tightened up as she squeezed his head between them and pushed his face into her pussy with hands on the back of his head. Steve felt like he was in heaven, surrounded by her as the walls of her pussy contracted around his fingers. He savored her gasp right before she called out his name and dug that heel on his back right into his muscles there.

Before she could even come down from the high of her orgasm, Steve had her ankles in his hands and his dick buried as far as it could get inside her. It wasn’t difficult because she was dripping wet. The fluttering muscles of her pussy were going to be his downfall, though. He could barely restrain himself with those muscles bearing down on him and then letting up at irregular intervals. He’d been dreaming about this since the last time, fantasizing about it as his feet pounded the pavement on his early morning run. The reality was so much better than the fantasy or his memory.

After only a handful of thrusts, he let go of her legs and dropped his body down on top of hers. Her perfect tits were pressed up against his chest as he grunted and unloaded himself deep inside her. The intensity of the moment made everything disappear for a moment. It was just the wave of euphoria and pleasure so sharp it was almost painful. When he came to, her fingers were buried in his hair and her lips were on his collarbone so she could press soft kisses there.

Steve pushed himself up on his elbows so he wasn’t crushing her. “Sorry,” he whispered when he managed the courage to look down into her eyes.

Darcy laughed softly. “Sorry for what?”

“Not lasting very long.”

This made her laugh again and hook a leg over his hip. God, this feels good, he thought. “Uh, no complaints from me,” she told him. “Pretty sure my legs are jelly. Couldn’t walk if I tried.”

He chuckled and rolled over onto his back beside her. The little gasp she gave when he pulled out of her made Steve want to roll right back over and go a second round. He just needed a few more minutes to recover. “I can’t walk either,” he told her. It was an outright lie. He could very easily push himself up, pull on his pants, and walk out her door. He didn’t want to, though. He just wanted another few minutes of this little fantasy world that existed independent of his fucked up life.

Darcy grabbed the edge of the sheet on her rumpled and unmade bed, pulling it over her midsection to cover her from tits to pussy. He wanted to push it off her so he could see her gorgeous body, but she seemed a little brittle, maybe even self-conscious. He knew the feeling well, so he kept his mouth shut and his hands to himself as he closed his eyes and licked his lips. Her taste was still all over his face.

Her giggles made him open his eyes only a couple seconds later. “Uh, Steve,” she said, pointing down his body.

Steve wondered if she was poking fun at his dick and the way it was lying against his thigh. No, he realized when he looked a little further down. His pants and boxers were bunched up at his ankles and his heavy black boots were still securely laced up. He smiled and shook his head. “I was in a hurry.”

“Yeah, you were.” She sat up and curled her legs beneath her, but kept the sheet secured with one of her arms. “You want some help?”

His cock twitched at her offer. “What kinda help you wanna give me?” he asked.

Darcy exhaled a sharp breath of laughter and shook her head. “Your choice. Either pulling up your pants or taking off your boots.”

“Take off my boots. I'm not ready to go, yet.”

He watched as Darcy maneuvered her way to the foot of the bed and tucked the sheet under her armpits to hold it in place while she pulled at the laces on his boots.

“What’s with the sheet?” he asked.

She pulled off his right boot and let it fall to the floor with a thump. “Uh, well, I’m a little self-conscious with Mr. Physical Perfection in my bed.” His left boot hit the floor and she pulled off both his socks.

Steve sat up and pushed his pants and boxers off his legs right before he grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back into the bed. The sheet got twisted, exposing her breasts. With his arm still holding her against his side, he palmed both of them, feeling the fullness and weight in his hand before letting her lie down beside him again, their shoulders pressed together while they both looked up at the ceiling. She hadn’t made a move to tug the sheet up to hide her tits yet. “You’re gorgeous,” he said. He was a coward for saying it to the ceiling and not while he was looking at her, but he couldn’t seem to bring himself to say it to her face.

She snorted and reached up to spread her hair out over the pillow. He got a whiff of her shampoo and it made his dick twitch again. Five, ten minutes, tops and he’d be ready to go again. “You don’t have to fib to make me feel better.”

“You think I don’t walk around half-hard all day long thinking about you?” he asked.

“Do you?”

“Thought it was obvious.”

She looked over at him, but he didn’t turn his head to look back. “Don’t bullshit me, Steve. I know what this is. The world has gone to hell, I’m convenient, and this—whatever this is—is the only thing right now that feels good.”

“You’re convenient,” he said, looking over at her.

“I’m here a floor below you and I’ve got the right parts. And you don’t have to work with me, so… Hey, I get it.”

She was absolutely right, but it made Steve feel sick to his stomach. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Why? I’m a willing participant.”

“You deserve better.”

Darcy turned her head so she could look at the ceiling again. He did the same as she said, “I don’t deserve shit. I’m okay with this… thing we’ve got going.”

She’d lost everyone important in her life. She definitely deserved more than he could ever give her. She needed someone who could support her and care for her, and he was broken, unable to be honest with her about the fact that he’d lost his best friend for the third time when Thanos had torn apart the universe with those fucking Stones. She’d shared her losses with him and he’d been unable to even say Bucky’s name. Because his death is your fault _again_ , the back of his mind supplied.

Steve rubbed his eyes with his thumb and index finger. “I think about you a lot.”

“Ditto,” she replied.

“I wanted to come by last night and do this. Been thinking about your shower, too.”

She laughed softly. “The shower is going in my spank bank to fuel me for years to come.”

“Spank bank?”

He could hear the smile in her voice when she said, “My mental vault of masturbatory fantasies for when I don’t have Captain America knocking on my door for a booty call.”

The idea of her touching her pussy and thinking about him made Steve’s blood run hot and got him half-hard. “Yeah?”

“Mmm, hmm,” she agreed. “Why didn’t you come by if you wanted to?”

“Wasn’t sure if I’d be welcome.”

“Lie. That was a lie,” Darcy said. “I thought you were too wholesome to lie.”

“You know I’m not that wholesome,” he said, reaching down to adjust his cock. He saw Darcy lift her head and watch him. Steve clenched his teeth together and wrapped his fingers around himself. “I didn’t want to take advantage,” he said, answering her question with the truth. “I might be worthless, but I don’t want to be the bad guy.”

She shifted onto her side. Her top leg was bent so her knee was pressing into the outside of his thigh. It was such a minuscule connection, not even all that sexual, but it was all he could concentrate on. She was talking, but he couldn’t understand a single word.

“Huh?” he said.

“I _said_ you’re not worthless, you dope.”

Steve rolled onto his side and grabbed the back of her head so he could pull Darcy in for a kiss. She moaned into his mouth and pressed her little hands against his chest.

When they broke apart for a breath, she said, “Your beard is wet. You taste like…”

“You,” he said, licking his lips. “You want me to go wash my face?”

She kissed him again. “Not really. It’s kinda hot.”

Steve felt his cock harden. Yeah, he was ready to go for round two now. “Hot, huh?” he asked, kissing her instead of letting her answer.

“Mmm,” Darcy replied after taking another breath.

“You like being all over my face as much as I like coming inside you?” He felt like he was possessed. He didn’t talk to women like this. He’d never felt territorial over a woman, never felt like he wanted to mark her as his like he wanted to mark Darcy. Maybe it was his fucked up mind. Maybe he just wanted to know that he could do something, be something to someone. He thought back to when he fucked her in the stairwell and the ladies’ room and how she’d probably walked out of both places with his cum deep inside her. Because she was _his_.

Darcy bit his lip as he pulled back from their kiss. “You’re definitely not very wholesome, Steven Rogers,” she teased.

“Only my alter ego is.”

She giggled. “Yeah? Captain America doesn’t fuck, but Steve Rogers does?”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “I wanna make you come again. How do you want it?”

She arched her body into his as he reached down and grabbed her ass after pushing the sheet away from her. “Honestly,” Darcy said, carding her fingers in his hair when he dipped his head to lick her breasts, “I’m probably a fan of any way you want. Your track record is top notch.”

Steve chuckled, feeling light-hearted and good for the moment. She made him feel like that. He’d thought maybe it was the sex, the orgasms, the power of holding her pleasure in his hands. Maybe all of that was part of it, but mostly it was just her. He tightened his grip on her ass before giving it a light smack. Darcy gasped and arched her chest up until one of her nipples brushed his lips. He sucked it into his mouth and flicked his tongue over it.

“Can you… from behind?” she asked in a breathless, sexed-up voice.

It took a moment for her question to filter through the haze. “From behind?”

“Yeah, like doggy st—-”

He didn’t let her finish. Steve had pushed himself up and flipped her onto her stomach before the last word came out of her mouth. Her legs were spread, allowing him to kneel between them and run a hand up the smooth skin of her back.

“Oh, god,” she said in a trembling voice.

“Oh, god, yes?” he asked, brushing her hair off to either side of her head so her shoulders and upper back were bare to him.

“Fuck, yes. Please, Steve.” There was a begging quality to Darcy’s voice that tightened the muscles in his abdomen as he thought about what she’d feel like from this angle, all spread open for him.

She pushed her hips up until she was on her knees. Her chest was still pressed to the mattress, creating a graceful line as the width of her shoulders and chest narrowed to her waist and flared back out into her hips. He put his left hand right there where her waist met her hip and dug his fingertips into the padded flesh of her hips. He’d always been a sucker for a woman with a body like a Coke bottle, and Darcy’s was perfection.

Steve spread her pussy lips with the fingers of his free hand. She was dripping with her own juices and his cum. It was all over the inside of her thighs, too. _Mine_ , he thought as he positioned the head of his cock at her entrance and slipped inside with a thrust of his hips. “Fuck,” he grunted when he felt her wrapped around him.

“Oh, shit… Steve, fuck… _God_... You’re so fucking deep.” He really was. She was so fucking tight, too. She fit him like a glove. He grabbed her hips and thrust forward, the muscles of his ass flexing so he could pump in and out of her. The way her ass rippled when he pushed in was mesmerizing.

He got into a rhythm, getting lost in the feel of her and the sexy flare of her hips in his hands. The insistent way she started pushing back on him knocked him out of the rhythm and tightened his balls. He stopped moving and found that Darcy was rocking herself right back onto his cock. Steve’s mouth opened as his shaft disappeared into her each time she pushed back into him. He loved her fantasy, but the way she was using him like a toy to satisfy herself made Steve wanted to lie on his back so she could ride him. Next time, he thought. Was there going to be a next time, though? Each time he did this with her, he told himself it would be the last.

She gave a little sound of frustration when she realized he’d stopped moving and wiggled her ass right up against his crotch. Steve flexed his muscles and pulled out so he could thrust back in hard enough her head moved a little closer to the headboard. “Yes, Steve, pleeeease,” she said, dragging out the plea in that sexy, husky voice of hers.

“I got you, sweetheart,” he murmured, sliding his right hand over her hip so he could touch her clit. The muscles in her abdomen jumped when he rubbed their juices all over that bundle of flesh and nerves. “Give it to me. Come on,” Steve whispered, urging her to come. He was so close, but he’d be damned if he blew his load before she got hers.

“Steve… Oh god, oh god, oh… fuck,” she grunted out the last word right when he felt the muscles of her pussy clamp down on his dick, trying to milk him. It was enough to push him over the edge. He let loose some unintelligible grunt of pleasure as he spilled himself inside her for the second time that night.

Unlike last time, this time Steve wasn’t sure he’d be able to walk. He curled his body over hers but didn’t pull out of her right away. She felt too good. “You okay?” he asked.

“Mmm, hmm,” she replied in a dreamy voice.

Chuckling softly, Steve let himself fall onto his side, using his hands on her hips to turn her onto her side so he could spoon her from the behind. His cock slipped out of her in the shuffle, but it was inevitable. Another thing that was inevitable was him returning to her bed. As long as she’ll let you, you asshole, he reminded himself.

Steve slipped his arm around her and up between her breasts so he could cup one in his palm. Darcy shifted until her ass was settled right up against his groin, and then she sighed.

“I’m gonna be sore tomorrow,” she whispered.

“Sorry?”

Darcy’s body shook with soft laughter. “No apology, please. It’ll be a good sore, an I-had-some-really-hot-sex sore.”

Steve closed his eyes and listened to her breathing as it slowed and evened out. The weight of her breast in his hand and the press of her body was comforting, grounding. He knew he should go because staying would only confuse things, but lying there with her felt too good to give up right away.

“You’re not worthless, Steve,” she said, breaking several minutes of silence. He thought back to when he’d said he was worthless and she’d called him a dope.

“I know. I just proved I’m good for something.”

“I’m serious, asshole,” she told him in a stern voice before she kicked a foot back and hit his shin with her boney heel.

Steve hooked his leg over hers and whispered, “Thank you,” in her ear because he could hear the honesty in her voice. Darcy Lewis was many things, but she wasn’t a liar or an ego-stroker. The warmth of her regard made Steve’s chest ache. He didn’t deserve this or her.

“Do you think Scott’s technology can help?” she asked after a moment of comfortable silence.

He brushed her hair away from her neck and placed a kiss right behind her ear. “I don’t know. Ain’t got my hopes up.”

“Yeah,” she replied.

Steve wanted to pull the blanket up and over them. He wanted to sleep in her bed with her in his arms. The urge scared him. As the anxiety wrapped its tendrils around his heart and his throat, he released Darcy and pushed himself up. He swung his legs over so he could sit on the edge of the bed with his back to her. His boots and pants were in the floor at the foot of the bed and his shirt was hanging from the corner of her television.

He felt Darcy roll onto her back, but she didn’t say anything. He needed to get the fuck out of there before he did something stupid. What was he even thinking? He didn’t know her well enough to feel any way about her. Steve rubbed his chin, which made him realized his beard still smelled like her. Closing his eyes, he swallowed and tried to rein in his lustful thoughts of repeating the shower from a couple days ago.

Instead of doing what he wanted, he did what he felt like he needed and pushed himself to his feet. Quickly, he pulled on his pants and shoved his feet into the unlaced boots before retrieving his shirt. When he turned toward the bed, she was lying there on her side with her hands folded beneath her cheek like a little girl. She’d pulled the sheet up to her chin and he couldn’t see an inch of her skin that wasn’t on her face or hands.

“I should go,” he said, shifting his eyes to the floor.

“Yeah,” she agreed.

Not trusting his voice to sound anything other than broken and regretful, he nodded and turned toward her door.

At the moment his hand touched the doorknob, she said, “Goodnight, Steve.”

He laid his forehead against the door and closed his eyes. “Goodnight, Darcy,” he replied softly.


	8. Chapter 8

> _“Boy, I like that you ain’t afraid. Baby, lay me down and let’s pray. I’m telling you the way I like it, how I want it.” - Ariana Grande (God Is a Woman)_

Nebula was standing by the window of the kitchen, her eyes shifting between the view of the city and Darcy sitting at the table for four. Darcy didn’t know what to say to the woman as they both waited for Nat to show up and ease the tension in the room. Normally, she could lighten up a room, but her mind was too preoccupied with Steve Rogers and what they’d done only hours ago. After he’d left, she’d changed her messy sheets and showered. When she was done, all that was left were the memories of him in her bed.

She’d fallen asleep thinking about whether she was short-changing herself by letting whatever this was happen or if she was just being a modern woman who could take what she wanted. And she definitely wanted Steve and everything he had to offer. _In the bedroom_ , she reminded herself. She wanted everything he had to offer in the bedroom and the stairwell and the bathroom. She didn’t actually know him well enough to say if she wanted all that other stuff, though. Sometimes he seemed almost as moody as Nebula.

She focused on the other woman and tried to push Steve out of her mind. “Where are you from?”

Nebula’s gaze flicked over to Darcy, but she didn’t move. “What?” she barked.

Darcy swallowed and said, “Like, what planet are you from?”

Several seconds of silence stretched out before Nebula finally said, “Luphom.”

“You, uh, came here with Tony, then?”

Nebula’s eyes narrowed. “Yes.”

“Your skin is beautiful.”

“This isn’t all my skin.”

Darcy chewed on her lower lip and turned her coffee cup in her hands. “Purple is my favorite color. Isn’t that your skin—the strip down the middle?” She looked away and said, “I’m sorry. Forget it. I’m being rude, right?”

Taking a sip from the mug of sweetened coffee, Darcy kept her eyes diverted and wished like hell Nat would show up with the bagels soon. “Yes,” Nebula’s voice cut through almost a minute of tense silence, “that’s my skin. You are very pale.”

Darcy glanced up and gave the woman a sheepish smile. “Yeah. No one here has purple skin. I guess that’s why you’re holed up in the building, right?”

“Right.”

“Did you know Rocket before?”

“Yes.”

“What’s his story?”

A little wrinkle appeared between her eyebrows as she considered Darcy’s question. “I don’t know. He’s not forthcoming.”

“Well, neither are you.” Darcy slapped her hand over her mouth as soon as the words came out. She widened her eyes in silent apology.

Instead of snapping back, Nebula rolled her eyes and turned her gaze back to the window. “My story doesn’t matter.”

“Sure it does.”

“To whom?”

“To me. How did you learn to speak English?”

“The way you did. By listening and speaking.”

Darcy raised her brows. “I didn’t know English was spoken in, uh, Luphom.”

“It’s not. Don’t be intentionally obtuse. I’ve taught myself several different languages.”

Smiling at the woman, Darcy said, “Can you say something in… What do they speak in Luphom?”

“Luphom is gone. Thanos destroyed it.”

Darcy felt her stomach drop. “Oh. I—I’m sorry.”

“When I find him, I’ll destroy him,” Nebula said, her voice bitter, determined.

“Uh, how? I mean, not to rain on your parade or assume you can’t do all kinds of really badass shit because I’m sure you can, but... I mean, all these guys are pretty badass, too, and they couldn’t stop him.”

Nebula didn’t reply. Less than two minutes later, Nat strolled into the kitchen with a large brown bag and Steven fucking Rogers. He paused in the doorway when he saw Darcy sitting at the table, and at that moment she knew for a fact that he had forgotten she would be in the kitchen that morning. He had definitely not intended on running into her.

“I invited Steve to our girls' breakfast,” Nat told Darcy as she sat the bag on the table and walked over to the coffee maker.

He cleared his throat and said, “I, uh, don’t want to interrupt. I didn’t know this was… I’ll just leave you ladies to it.”

“Sit down, Steve,” Nat told him, putting a mug at the empty spot to the right of Darcy. “We even saved you a spot.”

He sighed and hesitantly walked over to the table. Darcy stood up quickly, her chair nearly toppling over. Being so close to him with the memories of his naked body curled around hers on the bed, was difficult. All she could think about was his mouth, his hands, his cock. The man standing there in a pair of sweats and a too-tight blue tee was almost a different person in the way he wouldn’t look at her at all.

Darcy took her mug over to the coffee maker and refilled it. She poured another for Nebula and walked it over to the other woman where she stood at the window. “Coffee?”

Nebula’s black eyes looked back, her face impassive. Slowly, she reached out and accepted the mug, careful not to touch Darcy’s hand. “You are nervous around him. Why?” Nebula’s voice was barely a whisper.

“I’m not nervous.”

“You are. He watches you, but he’s no danger to you.” Nebula paused before saying, “Is he trying to mate with y—”

“No!” Darcy said as forcefully as she could under her breath. “No… mating. Stop talking, please. He can probably hear everything we say.”

“Yes,” Nebula agreed. “He’s watching you. You’re right; he can hear what we are saying. Good to know.”

Darcy wanted to sink into the floor, but she didn’t have that superpower. She actually didn’t have any superpowers, so she had no clue what she was doing surrounded by people who did. Maybe Tony would let her borrow one of his fancy suits so she could fly into orbit and stay there until the embarrassment went away. “Glad I could help expand your knowledge,” she told Nebula in a dry voice.

The other woman sipped at the coffee tentatively before taking a deeper drink. “Better than the swill you gave me yesterday,” she told Darcy.

“What swill? Tony’s bottle of wine? Dude, that stuff probably goes for two hundred plus a pop if it’s in Tony Stark’s bar.”

Nebula shrugged like that didn’t change her mind.

“You Luphomites or Luphomians or… What the hell do they call you?”

The corner of Nebula’s mouth twitched as if she might smile. “Luphomoids.”

“Whatever. Do you like the coffee?” Darcy asked.

“It’s agreeable.”

She dropped her voice even though she suspected Steve could still hear her. “Could you not make a big deal of out me and Steve and whatever?”

“Was I making a big deal?”

Darcy narrowed her eyes. “Keep your mouth shut on the subject.”

This time Nebula did smile. “Sure.”

Turning around, she looked right into Steve’s eyes like there was some magnet that drew their gazes together. “Good morning,” she said, trying to act like a normal person who didn’t just have wild sex with him less than twelve hours ago.

“Morning,” he replied, dropping his eyes to the table where Nat was laying out the food she’d bought.

Darcy walked over and slipped into her chair before glancing up and locking eyes with Steve again. She forced a smile, which eventually morphed into the genuine thing when his eyes softened and he gave her a small smile of his own. The warmth in his expression made her stomach flutter.

“Supply chains are shit nowadays,” Nat said as she crumpled up the bag and tossed it toward the trash can. Nebula caught the ball of paper that was going to miss its target and deposited it in the can before walking over to join them. She took a seat to Darcy’s left, holding the mug between her hands and sipping as she watched them with her pupil-less eyes.

“Are they out of cream cheese?”

“Not yet. Almost out of lox. No fresh fruit.”

Darcy pushed out her lower lip and looked at the small container of the brined salmon. “I can’t imagine bagels without lox.”

Steve picked up a sliced bagel and slathered cream cheese on both sides before adding a bit of the salmon to the top. She watched as he sat the slices on a plate and pushed it over to her. Darcy’s eyes went from the plate to him and then over to Nat. Nat raised her brows in question.

“Thanks, Steve,” Darcy murmured.

* * *

Nebula left first and took the remainder of the lox with her, telling everyone that the cream cheese was disgusting. Nat left shortly after when she finished her breakfast and didn’t bother to clean up her mess. The table was covered in crumbs, plastic knives coated with cream cheese, and wrappers scattered next to the remaining bagel. Steve had eaten three already. Darcy had shared her first with Nebula and eaten one on her own.

Just as she put her hands on the table to stand up, Steve said, “You want to share the last one?”

She looked up at his blue eyes. He looked earnest, like he didn’t want her to leave. “Sure. I’d like that.”

He spread a generous amount of cream cheese on the top half of the bagel and handed it to her. Their fingers touched when she accepted it and Darcy felt a zing of electricity as she thought about the things he’d done with that hand. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable this morning. Nat didn’t tell me you’d be here.”

His explanation made Darcy feel a little sick to her stomach. He wouldn’t have come had he known he’d have to see her in the light of day. What the fuck was she even doing? “Sorry, I guess I should stick to my room to avoid any public run-ins with you since I’m the dirty little secret.” Her voice was sharp and bitter.

“Darcy, it isn’t like that. I…”

“I know what it is,” she said, putting her food down without taking a bite.

His warm hand dropped onto her thigh right above the knee. She could feel the heat of it through her thin, black leggings. “Do you?” he asked. “Because I’m not sure what it is and I’d love to know.”

All the anger and hurt she’d been feeling slipped away at his question. She sighed and said, “Like I said, I’m convenient and you’re looking to… I don’t know… blow off a little steam?”

Steve’s eyebrows went up. “I usually hit something when I want to do that.”

“You don’t seduce women?” She asked with a wry smile.

He chuckled and shook his head. “No. I thought I was the one who got seduced in this situation.”

Darcy’s laughter was loud and abrupt and made him jump. “Are you fucking kidding me? You think _I_ seduced _you_. Not a chance, dude.” She glanced over at the doorway, remembering that there were other people in the building before lowering her voice and saying, “You were the one adjusting yourself at the bar and glancing over at the door.”

“You were the one looking at me.”

“So, every time some chick looks at you, it’s an invitation to—”

“You were looking me up and down, Darcy,” he said, interrupting her.

“Oh, so you were doing me a favor, then? You saw pathetic Darcy was hungry for it and—”

He squeezed her leg to cut her off. “I was looking, too. I was _not_ doing you a favor. I feel like I’m the bad guy here.”

“The bad guy? What does that mean?”

He looked at the door behind him and leaned in closer. “I’m taking advantage of you and the situation. You deserve better than this.”

Darcy lifted her chin up even though his words stung. So, she was right after all. This was about convenience for him. It wasn’t like he was so attracted he couldn’t help himself. It was more like he was looking for sex and she was there and more than willing so he was jumping at the chance. “Maybe it’s not about what I deserve. Maybe it’s about what I want.”

She picked the bagel up and took a bite, swallowing it quickly and taking another. She couldn’t even taste it.

“What you want?”

“Yeah, maybe I was looking for sex. Maybe I just wanted to blow off a little steam without throwing a punch like _some_ people.”

“Are you saying you’re using me for sex?” he asked, his mouth a thin line in the middle of all that beard.

“We’re using each other, obviously.”

He took his hand off her leg and picked up his half of the bagel. “Obviously,” he agreed.

They ate in silence. When Darcy finished, she sighed and said, “Nat knows.”

Steve nodded. “I’m aware. She saw me leaving your place the night… that first night I came over.” He paused before saying, “Does that bother you?”

She shrugged and said, “We’re adults, right? We can do what we want.”

“Right,” he agreed. There was no conviction behind the word, though.

Darcy sighed and finished the dregs of her coffee in the bottom of the mug. “You look like you were exercising. Is there a gym in the building?”

“Yeah, upstairs. I can show you if want.”

“Do I look like I work out, Steve?”

He looked up at her through those long lashes and gave her a hesitant little smile. “I feel like that’s a question that is going to get me in trouble no matter how I answer.”

“You’re probably right. Smart man,” she told him.

“I don’t use the gym. I run in the mornings.”

“Run where?”

He shrugged. “Everywhere. I go out at four or five and run until eight or nine.”

“Damn,” she replied. “Like, you run for four or five hours. How?”

“It’s not that big of a deal. Marathon runners do it.”

“I’m not a fan of running unless I’m running from a massive alien-worm.”

He leaned back and crossed his ankle over his knee. “You have many run-ins with alien-worms?”

“Just once. Being semi-friends with Thor comes with some hazards.”

“I think you’re just plain friends with Thor, Darcy. Nothing semi about it.”

It was her turn to shrug. “We’re friends because of Jane. That’s the only reason I’m here.”

He dropped his gaze for a moment before looking up again and saying, “I’m glad you’re here.”

“I bet you are,” she said in a dry voice.

He smiled at her. “I’m glad you’re here and so is everyone else. I see you trying to help them all, Darcy.”

Shaking her head, she said, “I can’t help, not really.” After a moment’s pause, she leaned forward and put her chin in her palm and propped her elbow on the table. “Would you tell me what happened? Like, what _really_ happened?”

“I thought Thor told you.”

“Not really. I mean, he told me why half the world is gone, but…”

Steve pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Well, Thanos collected the Stones. You know the Infinity Stones, right?”

“Never seen one, but Thor told me about them.”

“He collected them. Tony and another group of people tried to stop him from getting the Time Stone, but weren’t able to keep it from him. I… I don’t know exactly what happened. Tony won’t talk about it.”

“Okay.”

Steve frowned. “The Mind Stone—the last one he needed—was in Vision. We took him to Wakanda because we thought they might be able to help. While T’Challa’s sister tried to remove it, Thanos’ army landed and these… creatures attacked the city. We were fighting them off when Thor came back.”

“Nice of him to show up,” Darcy said.

One corner of his mouth pulled up in a smile. “Yeah, well, it was tough. We were outnumbered. We could have won, though. Until he showed up.”

“Thanos?”

Steve nodded, the smile wiped from his face.

“What does he look like? Was he like one of those bug things were you fighting? I saw pictures of them on the news.”

“No, he looked like us, only bigger and purple.”

“How big?”

“Big. Eight, ten feet? As big as Bruce gets when he… when he turns into the Hulk.” Steve passed a hand over his face, rubbing his eyes and beard. “He had the Stones in a gauntlet. Vision was injured and I was trying to protect him. Wanda was supposed to destroy the Stone once they removed it from Vision, but… but I guess there wasn’t time. I don’t know. Things were so jumbled. I remember holding his hand back and then…”

“Whose hand? Thanos’ hand?”

Steve nodded. “I was fighting him and then… he was gone. He was on Vision and pulling the Stone out and…”

Darcy watched Steve’s brows furrow as he remembered. His eyes looked glazed over like he wasn’t even in the room with her. “He put it in the gauntlet and Thor tried to… Thor buried the ax into his shoulder and chest, but… He didn’t die. He snapped his fingers and all I saw was white light.”

“And then they were gone?”

“Not right away, no.” Steve closed his eyes. “It was a few seconds later. By then he was gone.”

She frowned as she thought about that moment that had brought everyone on the Earth—everyone in the universe—together. Darcy hadn’t been there, but she’d lived it because she remembered that moment Steve was reliving. She would never forget sitting there behind the stupid table in the stupid tent they’d erect and watching as Jane just disintegrated in front of her like she was ashes and a slight breeze had scattered her into the air. Nothing was left by the time Darcy had knocked the chair over and hurried around the table.

Steve uncrossed his legs and leaned forward to put his warm hand back on her leg. “I’m sorry you lost people, sweetheart. I’m sorry I couldn’t stop it.”

Darcy looked down at the back of his hand. “Not your fault,” she whispered, laying her hand on top of his. She ran his story through her mind again and frowned. “Wait, you said he was in front of you and then he was gone.”

“It was a mess, Darcy. We’d lost formation and everything was a disaster.”

“What if he used the Space Stone to teleport? It can do that, right?”

“I don’t think—”

She widened her eyes as another thought occurred to her. “Tony said the Time Stone might allow him to time travel or… or, like, maybe even rewind time. If he was in front of you and then he was just… gone... I mean, what if you _won_ and he had to dial shit back to save himself.”

Steve looked up at her. “If we won, then he’d have been dead and not able to rewind.”

“You said Wanda was supposed to destroy the Mind Stone. What if she did and he had to bring it back?”

Steve considered her theory and then shook his head. “It doesn’t matter, Darcy. Fact is, we lost.”

“Yeah, but you lost against someone who had stacked the deck. There wasn’t a way to win. That’s not your fault, dude. You shouldn’t be feeling like shit and apologizing to me over some asshole cheating to win. Fuck that.”

He gave a broken and humorless laugh before squeezing her leg and pulling his hand away. “Thanks, sweetheart.” Pushing himself up to his feet Steve looked down at her. “I should go check on Tony. I heard he showed up in the lab at six o’clock this morning looking for Bruce.”

She smiled up at him. “I’ll see you around, Steve. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

Steve put his hands on his hips and looked at the ground for a long moment. He lifted his gaze back to hers and there was a sad smile on his face. Instead of replying, he just nodded and turned to leave.

* * *

She was staring at the multi-colored bars on her television screen that told her the channel was off the air for the night. Darcy still wasn’t used to these changes that had happened overnight. Flights were few and far between, supply chains had been disrupted and stores couldn’t get their merchandise. People in remote regions that depended on farming were starving, not just because half the crops and animals had gone with the snap, but because half the people who raised the animals and tended the crops were gone.

Basically, Thanos was no fucking genius. He might have reduced overpopulation, but he’d added a slew of other problems that didn’t have immediate or easy answers. Darcy wanted to punch the dude in his big, fat head, but she suspected she couldn’t even reach that high since Steve said he was ten feet tall.

It was just after eleven o’clock, and there had been no knock on her door. She didn’t want to be disappointed, but she was. It was silly, really. He couldn’t exactly come by and turn her inside out every single night. He had responsibilities and people counting on him. He had his own life and his own desires. As much as she knew it shouldn’t, it hurt that she wasn’t high enough on that list of desires to merit a visit this evening.

“Stupid,” she muttered under her breath as she checked the messages on her phone. No voicemails, no texts, nothing. Of course. Her life had gone to hell and everyone she spoke to on a regular basis was gone or missing or too busy with their own fucked up life to care about her and hers. Was Natasha now her closest friend? Was this really her life when a super spy was her best friend and the closest she could get to a boyfriend was fucking Captain America on the sly? The Darcy of two years ago would have been excited at this turn, but the Darcy of the present didn’t think it was all it was cracked up to be.

Why had she sat there all evening and waiting for him like an idiot? She pushed herself off the small loveseat and marched into the kitchen. Darcy let the cabinet door slam shut after getting a glass to fill with water. Where did Steve stay anyway? He was just a floor above, right? Letting herself get swept up in the anger, she put the glass down and pulled open her door.

Darcy walked down the hall in her bare feet and black pajama pants with rainbows and stars on them to knock on Nat’s door. The other woman answered with a smile on her face. “Hi, Darcy.”

“What’s his room number?” Darcy snapped.

Nat’s smile got bigger. “Seventy-four twelve.”

“Thanks,” Darcy replied, spinning around and taking the elevator up to the next floor. She was shoeless, after all, and the steps were probably filthy.

It wasn’t until she got to his door that the anger that had been fueling her dwindled. She’d been thinking about how it wasn’t fair she just had to sit around and wait for him to come to her. What if she wanted to cut loose and have an orgasm? What if she wanted sex when he didn’t feel like it? She’d been pretty fucking accommodating to him the four times he’d initiated it. Except now that she was standing in front of his door, all that bravado started slipping away.

“Fuck,” she muttered, running a hand through her hair. She stepped back from his door and looked toward the elevator at the end of the hallway. “This was a bad idea.”

Steve’s door opened at that exact moment to reveal him in a pair of black boxer-briefs so tight they were scandalous and nothing else. “Darcy,” he said.

With no small amount of effort, she forced her gaze to lift away from the outline of his junk in the underwear, right up his flawless and perfect chest, to meet his blue eyes. He looked like he wanted to eat her alive.

“Darcy,” he said again, his expression guarded.

“Am I allowed to come inside or does this only work if you’re the one initiating?” she asked.

Darcy saw the muscles of his jaw tense. Before she could open her mouth to tell him to ignore her, he stepped into the hallway, bent at the waist, and shoved his shoulder into her stomach so he could throw her into a fireman’s carry.

“Steve,” she gasped, flailing for a moment as he turned around and stepped back into his apartment.

He kicked the door shut behind them and said, “What did you come here for?”

She couldn’t see much of his place because the only thing in her line of sight was his tight ass covered by the thin material of his underwear. “You,” she replied without even giving it thought.

He jostled her as he walked further into the apartment and dropped her on a firm bed. Darcy threw her arms out to the side to steady herself and realized too late that he’d bent down to pull her pants and underwear off in one go. “Take the shirt off,” he ordered.

“Oh—okay.” She pulled it off just in time to watch him push those scandalous and maybe too-small boxer-briefs down his muscular thighs. “Wow,” she said, looking at his body from her reclined position on the bed.

“You’ve seen it all before, Darcy,” he said, putting a knee on the foot of the mattress. He was half hard and getting fully there by the second.

A giddy laugh bubbled up and fell from her lips. “Yeah, but you’re still pretty wow-worthy.”

Steve crawled toward her, urging Darcy to spread her legs for him. She acquiesced without a single complaint. She wanted nothing more than to have him right between her thighs. “So are you,” he whispered before surprising her by dipping down and licking her.

Darcy squealed and tried to push herself up toward the head of the bed, but by then Steve had thrown her legs over his shoulders and wrapped his arms around each of her thighs so he could lift up ass up off the bed and give himself more freedom to taste her. “Steve,” she said, moaning his name and looking down her body to where he was lifting up her lower half. It allowed her an unobstructed view of his mouth latched onto her pussy, her dark pubic hair pressed right up against his nose.

“Been thinking about you all day,” he murmured against her slit before wiggling his tongue up inside her.

“Why didn’t you come over?” she asked him as she shut her eyes. The sensation was overwhelming enough without watching him eat her out like that.

“Didn't know if I was welcome after we talked today,” he whispered, kissing her inner thigh. “Didn’t want you thinking I was using you.”

“We’re using each other,” she said.

“Mmm,” he agreed after he sucked her clit into his mouth. The deep vibration almost made her come.

“Oh, fuck, that felt good,” she said, shifting her hips. She didn’t have much leverage with her shoulders on the mattress and her ass several inches off the bed. Steve’s grip was gentle, but firm and unyielding.

“I don’t feel much of anything these days,” he said, “except for this.” He coaxed her clit between his lips and hummed again. He flicked her button with his tongue and repeated the noise. It was enough to set Darcy off. She bucked her hips up into his face and grabbed fistfuls of the duvet on his immaculately-made bed.

“Oh my god,” she muttered. “What the fuck, Steve? I can’t… I don’t think I can move that was so good.”

He laughed softly and lowered her ass to the bed before dropping down to lie on his side next to her. Darcy watched one of his hands reach over and push a stray lock of hair back from her face before he rolled onto this back. “You need a minute?” he asked, a subtle smile playing on his lips.

Darcy pushed herself up on her elbows before turning onto her side so she could see his handsome face. He looked up at her before curling his fingers over his beard and wiping her juices from the hairs there. “Isn’t that gross to you?” she asked.

He really did smile this time. “No. I didn’t shower until this morning after… last night. I like smelling you all over me. I love the way you taste.”

Glancing down, she saw his impossibly perfect and rock hard cock standing at attention. “What do I taste like?” she asked.

Steve’s hand on the back of her head made Darcy shift her gaze back up to his face right before he pulled her into a filthy kiss that was more tongue than lips. She groaned and kissed him back before pulling away just enough to run her tongue over his mouth and the wiry hairs of his beard right below that full lip. Her flavor was faint and musky, earthy. It wasn’t bad, though. “You taste like that,” he whispered before tilting his chin up and kissing her again.

“Mmm, I think that’s how you taste after you eat me out,” she told him.

Chuckling, Steve ran the fingertip of one hand down her shoulder and arm. “That’s true. How do I taste?”

“Not bad,” Darcy whispered before pushing herself up to her knees and maneuvering down to the foot of the bed.

Steve lifted his head up and watched her kneel between his thighs. “I’m not gonna last if you do that, Darcy,” he warned.

She smiled up at him. “Do what? I thought we were in the middle of a taste test. Besides, you’ve got a, like, five-minute refractory period. What’s up with that?”

He opened his mouth to answer her, but Darcy was feeling devious and powerful, so she guided the head of his cock into her open mouth and closed her lips before he could say anything. Instead, all she got was a low groan and his hand gathering her hair up so it wasn’t in her way.

“Super soldier serum lets you go at it like a bunny? Seems like they’d want it the other way around.” Darcy dipped her head to run the flat of her tongue all the way up the vein underneath his cock.

Steve grunted again when she guided him back into her mouth and sucked. “No, sweetheart. It ain’t the serum; it’s you.”

Whether it was the truth or not, his comment still made her stomach feel all warm and fluttery. It also made her want to make him come undone. She braced her forearms on his rock hard thighs and used one hand to fist the base of his cock while the other gently cupped his balls. When she took him all the way into her mouth until he hit the back of her throat, Steve cursed under his breath. She could feel the restraint in the way he was holding himself. She knew he wanted to buck up into her, but probably thought it would choke her.

Bracing herself, Darcy slid her lips down his shaft again, closed her eyes as she tried hard to suppress her gag reflex so he could slide down her throat just a bit.

“Fuck, Darcy,” he growled, tightening his hand in her hair. “I don’t know what you’re doing, but…” Steve trailed off as she lowered her mouth again, taking him even deeper this time. Her jaw was strained from his girth and she could only maintain it for a few more strokes.

Instead of letting up and giving him a moment to catch his breath, she popped him out of her mouth and licked her tongue right up the center of the sack that held his balls. Steve’s hips came up off the bed that time as he gasped. It made Darcy laugh; she was drunk on the control she had over this powerful man.

He almost whimpered when she sucked one of his balls into her mouth and rolled it around with her tongue. “Sweetheart, you’re not playing fair,” Steve said through clenched teeth when she moved to his other ball.

“Life isn’t fair,” she told him when her mouth was no longer occupied.

“It sure ain’t,” he replied right before she started working his cock with her hand and mouth again. He was so close to falling apart right in her hands. She could feel how tight his balls were and the trembling in his thighs. His hand in her hair was shaking, too.

“Darcy, I’m gonna…”

She moaned around his cock and took him deeper into her mouth until her gag reflex kicked in again. His body jerked and she pulled back just enough so that when he came he did so all over her tongue. She swallowed his salty, thick cum without a thought. It made her wet just thinking about the noises he was making as she licked him clean.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Steve growled, grabbing her arms and pulling her up against his body. She was lying directly on top of him, her chest against his and his face right below hers. He grabbed the back of her head and kissed her again, sucking her tongue into his mouth. “Is that how I taste?” he whispered when he pulled back to take a breath.

She smiled down at him. “No, it’s how I taste after I blow you.”

This made him chuckle and wrap his arms around her so she couldn’t roll away from him. Despite his hard body, he was comfortable to lie on top of. Darcy sighed and gave into the moment by letting her head rest on his shoulder and breathing in his scent with her nose pressed against his neck. She’d never felt this safe and this good after sex, and she couldn’t seem to feel anything but satisfied and happy in that moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Halfway there! I hope you all are enjoying!


	9. Chapter 9

> _”Ash I am, to ash I’ll always be. Let me lay in your strong arms. Can we find peace in that holy sea? Why do we do it this way? I can’t bury your past. We’ll just hold on instead.” - St. Paul & the Broken Bones (I’ll Be Your Woman)_

The weight of Darcy’s body draped over his was comforting at first. Steve was spent and blissed out after the orgasm she’d given him. She’d successfully turned his brain off for a few minutes and all he wanted to think about was how good she felt in his arms. It was the wash of her hot breath on his neck that started the dominoes falling. And then her soft breasts pressed against his chest made his cock jump. Steve swallowed and opened his eyes to stare at the ceiling, her dark hair in the corner of his vision.

A spot on his abdomen felt cool. He knew it was because her pussy was right there and all those sweet juices he’d coaxed from her when he put his mouth there had been smeared on his skin when her legs had fallen to either side of his narrow hips. If he pushed her body down and lifted his hips up, Steve thought he might be able to slip right up inside her. She was definitely wet enough. His cock jumped at the idea.

Slowly, he lifted a hand and let his fingertips move over her back. First, he rubbed down her spine and then spiraled out into patterns on either side of it. Darcy huffed out a shuddering breath and wiggled her body. “That feels so good,” she whispered, digging her fingers into his chest and shoulder where they’d been resting.

Her husky voice in his ear and the way she shifted her hips on him coaxed his dick to harden further. This woman was going to kill him. All he wanted to do was touch her, push his dick so deep inside her she wouldn’t know the difference between her body and his. “I can feel how wet you are,” he whispered back.

Darcy chuckled. “Don’t complain. That’s your fault.”

“I ain’t complaining.” He swept his hands up her back and then down to grab each of her ass cheeks.

She gasped and writhed on him like she was in heat. Steve shifted his hands on her ass until the tips of his fingers were brushing the lips of her pussy from behind. Darcy pushed back into the touch and dropped her forehead to his sternum. “Fuck, Steve,” she muttered. “You make me crazy.”

“Yeah?” he asked, a smile on his face. “That makes two of us.”

She kissed the center of his chest before looking up at his face. Steve looked down at her and felt his heart ache. “Can you go again?” she asked.

It had only been ten minutes, but he was almost as hard as he’d been when she’d knocked on his door. “Yeah,” he told her.

With hands braced on his chest, she pushed herself up until she was kneeling over him, thighs bracketing his waist. The head of his cock was pressed right up against her sexy ass and that just made him harder. Steve reached up to take her breasts in his hands, rolling her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers. Darcy arched into his touch and threw her head back.

Steve lifted his hips up to remind her that this would be so much better if she moved down a few inches and guided his cock inside all that tight, wet heat. She took the hint and shifted down, using a hand on his cock to press it against his stomach so she could get into position. Reluctantly, Steve released her tits and put his hands on her hips to help lift her up. Darcy leaned forward with one hand on his chest and laughed. She wrapped a hand around his cock and positioned the head of it right up against her pussy.

He closed his eyes when she slid down his length, but he groaned in pleasure when she shifted her hips to get comfortable. “Damn,” Steve muttered, opening his eyes and seeing her bite her lower lip as she moved again.

“You’re big,” she whispered, leaning back. Her pussy tightened around him like a vice and Steve threw his head back. “Mmm, you feel so good,” Darcy said.

“So do you,” he replied on an exhale. “Sweetheart, you gotta move or I’m gonna lose my mind.”

This made her let out a giddy, breathy laugh that tightened his balls. It had never been like this with someone before. He wondered if it was because of all that had happened or if it was her. When she rocked forward and then back, Steve knew it was her. Maybe what had happened made him just reckless and crazy enough to take her in the stairwell that night, but the way he felt insatiable when it came to her was all Darcy’s fault.

Steve bent his knees at the same time he moved his hands from her hips back up to her full breasts. They overflowed his hands and looking at them made his mouth water. He could spend days just putting his mouth all over her body, tasting every inch of her skin. Her hands came up off his chest and wrapped around his wrists. The position made it feel like she was towering over him.

She rocked her hips back until her ass was pressed up against his thighs and then forward, bracing herself against his hands on her tits. Darcy’s eyes closed and her lips parted. She looked like she was in heaven with his cock buried to the hilt inside her body. Steve felt the same way.

“You look like a fucking goddess right now,” he whispered, his jumbled thoughts just falling right out of his mouth like an idiot. He wasn’t a sweet-talker. He got the job done, but had never waxed poetic, never felt like he was on the verge of losing… He closed his eyes to block out the image of her riding him. The ghost of it was seared into his brain, visible even behind his eyelids. Losing what? Himself?

“Oh, god… _Steve_.” She practically whined his name as she started to move with a bit more force like she was taking her pleasure, like she was using him. It didn’t feel bad, though, to be her sex toy. He wanted her to feel as good as she made him feel. Hell, he wanted her to feel better. He wanted her so strung out on him that she’d never look at another man for the rest of her life.

“Fuck,” Steve growled, feeling his gut twist. It wasn’t like that. It couldn’t be like that. This—whatever it was—was temporary. It was just to get him through, get him over, keep him from dying inside like he had been before she came along.

Fighting the feeling of his chest tightening, he flexed his hips and pushed up just as she was rocking back. “Steve!” she said with a gasp as he let go of her breasts and used a hand on the back of her neck to pull her down so he could kiss her. The new angle allowed him to lift his hips and pump into her much faster than the slow rocking motion she’d been using to satisfy herself. It had been too erotic, too tender. It had been messing with his head. He needed dirty and fast and depraved if he was going to survive whatever this was between them.

Steve sucked her tongue into his mouth as he braced his feet on the bed and thrust up into her very willing body. Would some man do this to her after he was gone? Would that man make her feel like this? Would he appreciate her the way he should? Thinking about it made Steve anxious and furious. He was in too deep. It was wasn’t supposed to go like this. He wasn’t supposed to feel this way.

The way her hair fell in a curtain on either side of their faces as he kissed her made Steve feel like he was surrounded by her and there was nothing else in the world. His chest tightened again, and he turned his head away from the kiss to pull in a ragged breath. Too fucking much.

Letting go of her neck, he put his hands on her shoulders and helped Darcy to lift her upper body until she was towering above him again. Steve grabbed her hips with rough hands. “Bounce on my cock,” he demanded, running a tongue over his bottom lip where she’d nipped him with her teeth.

Darcy moaned and let her head fall back until she could only see the ceiling. He felt her fingers wrap around his forearms to brace herself as she flexed the muscles in her abdomen to lift up. Steve helped her by using his hands on her hips to lift her up. “Oh my god,” she groaned as he let her drop back onto him.

“Touch yourself. Come on me,” he ordered her. “I wanna feel you.”

Steve watched her shaking hand slide off his arm and down to work her clit She used her middle finger in a circular motion. “I’m… so close.”

“That’s it,” he told her. He could feel her pussy squeezing him a little tighter each time he lifted her body up and let it fall until he was buried all the way in her. She looked so fucking hot riding him, her tits bouncing. He couldn’t imagine spending another night without her and that scared the shit out of him.

Darcy’s body seized up and she called out his name as the walls of her pussy fluttered around his dick. He’d been on the verge for a minute, anticipating her climax. Now that she was pulsing around him, he let go and shot himself inside her. The intensity was enough to make him moan, his head thrown back against the pillow, as everything disappeared but her. When his consciousness faded back into reality a few moments later, she was lying on top of him, chest to chest. His cock was still buried deep inside her and her body was rising and falling rapidly as she tried to catch her breath.

Steve’s hands flexed on her hips as he fought the urge to lift them and touch her back and her neck, to wrap his arms around her and hold her against him. He wanted to grab a fistful of her messy hair and press his nose into it so he could inhale the scent of her shampoo. He wanted her _everywhere_. The next breath was hard to pull in and he nearly choked. Too far, too fast, too much. A couple months ago, he couldn’t feel a damn thing other than guilt. Now he felt _everything_ again. Fear and anxiety. Pride over the way she came apart all over him every time they were together. Determination to fix her life even though he had no idea how to do it. Hopelessness. The weight of it all was too much. He couldn’t breathe as the emotions buried him, smothered him. He needed to get away from her.

Steve grabbed her and rolled them over until she was on her back. Darcy’s body was warm and pliable in his hands, like she trusted him with her life. That was a fucking mistake. He’d spent his life losing everyone who got close to him and she’d be no exception.

Pulling out of her and rolling onto his back, Steve sucked in a ragged breath and threw an arm over his eyes as if that could shut out what had happened and how he was feeling. _How he was feeling._ The phrase echoed over and over in his head. He didn’t want to feel anything anymore. What the fuck was he even doing with her? Destroying her life with his? Maybe he was the villain in this story after all.

He felt Darcy shift on the bed and knew she was watching him with those blue eyes. He couldn’t bear to look at her, though. Why had he let her in his room? Because all you can think about these days is her, his mind reminded him. She moved again and the depression on the mattress changed. She wasn’t lying down beside him any longer. A moment later, he felt her weight leave the bed entirely.

Steve listened to the rustle of her clothes as she got dressed. He could feel her presence at the foot of his bed, but he knew if he lifted his arm off his face and looked at her, he’d ask her if she would stay in bed with him. His mind wobbled back and forth as he went from feeling stifled and smothered by his desire for her to desperate and aching to hold her against his body. Indecision was a decision in and of itself and nothing made that clearer than when he heard her walk away from him. Her feet made little slapping sounds against the tile flooring by the door. The latch clicked open and clicked shut.

Steve exhaled. Two seconds turned into ten seconds. He couldn’t suppress the urge any longer, so he rolled over and pressed his face into the mattress where her body had been, breathing in deeply. He’d lost so much. If he let her closer, then he’d lose her, too. It sounded like an easy decision to make, but he didn’t know how he was going to cut her out of his life now. It seemed damn near impossible.

* * *

Steve thought it might be in his head but he could swear he could still smell her on him. She’d left his bed hours ago. He’d slept in the same sheets with his face in the pillow she’d laid her head on while he’d licked and sucked between her thighs. She wasn’t in the room, so it had to be her sweetness still caught in his beard or lingering on his fingertips despite the shower he’d taken.

His mind was on things other than the business at hand as he sat in the conference room and listened to Tony explain a small white box no bigger than the back of his hand. As Tony kept talking and Scott Lang kept pacing, the tension in the room amped up. Steve could feel the change and that was what pulled him out of his mind and back into the present.

“Maybe I’m not keeping up because my pea brain is nothing compared to you nerds. You’re saying you can use Pym’s technology with the Bi-whatever-Augmented-blah-blah to send us back in time _maybe_. Assuming that works... If we change the past, doesn’t that change the present?” Clint said, wiggling the foot he’d propped on the conference table back and forth rapidly.

“That’s the point, Barton,” Tony replied.

Clint frowned. “Devil’s advocate here. Say this works and we go back and keep the Tesseract here or whatever.”

“We prevent it from going to Asgard,” Tony replied.

“Right, right. We _hide_ it, whatever. That doesn’t mean this shit won’t happen. It just means it might happen in a different way.”

“You got a better idea?” Tony snapped, smacking his hand on the table.

Clint pulled his foot back and said, “I’m not saying it isn’t worth a shot, but… what if changing that thing changes other things. A butterfly flaps its wings and causes a tsunami, you know? We don’t know what hell we could be bringing down on ourselves.”

Scott Lang stopped pacing. “You think it would be worse than this?”

“Nothing is worse than this,” Clint replied, voice raised. “I lost my fucking kids and wife.”

“Okay, okay,” Nat said leaning forward and holding an arm out between them.

“Clint’s right,” Steve replied, leveling his gaze on Tony. Tony would eventually be the deciding factor; he’d do what he wanted with or without the rest of them. “If we do this, we have to be prepared for things to change and maybe not for the better.”

“Without the Stones, he slaughtered hundreds of thousands.” Everyone turned to look at Nebula standing in the corner with one foot braced against the wall behind her. “Maybe he does that here the old fashioned way if he can’t find the Space Stone.”

“Or maybe he finds it anyway,” Nat added. “Are we sure we could keep it safe?”

“We’re not even sure we can use this technology to travel back to the battle with Loki,” Bruce told everyone, stepping up to stand beside Tony. “We need to at least try it regardless of whether we take action. What if we can go back to the moment he… took the Mind Stone from Vision?”

Steve thought of Darcy’s question about the Time Stone. It had been bothering him since she mentioned the possibility of the game being rigged. What if she was right and it had been a losing battle from the very start because the deck was stacked against them? “He had the Time Stone by then. What if it could be used to reverse time?”

“It can,” Nebula said in a flat voice.

“Well, fuck,” Clint muttered before pushing his chair back from the table.

“Focus, people,” Tony said when several people started talking at once. “Can we at least agree to go back to right before the Space Stone was sent to Asgard?” He looked around the room, eyes wide. “Yes? Right? Agreed?”

Steve nodded along with everyone else.

“Can we also agree that shit can’t get much worse than it is right now?” Tony added.

“I wasn’t saying this isn’t hell or Earth, Stark. I’m saying it can always be worse. I’ve got Lila. What if this blows up in our face and she ends up dead because we can’t—”

“Hey, you guys ever see that movie Final Destination?”

The room got quiet again as Rocket climbed one of the cushy, ergonomic chairs at the far end of the room and sat on the arm of it.

“What?” Bruce asked on behalf of everyone.

“That’s what it’s called, ain’t it? Final Destination? You can’t cheat death? The universe eventually self-corrects and all that bullshit?” Rocket looked around like everyone was crazy.

“Uh, is that a talking raccoon? Scott asked. “Why did no one tell me there is a talking raccoon?”

“Why do people keep calling me a raccoon?” Rocket asked.

Tony braced his hands on the table and leaned forward. “Have you been in my movie collection?”

Rocket shrugged. “Your security isn’t worth shit, Stark. All I had to do was plug-in and bypass—”

“I thought you were working on a spaceship?” Bruce asked.

“I am,” Rocket replied. “You think I can’t work and watch movies?”

When everyone started talking again, Bruce held up a hand and said, “Okay, okay. Come on, guys. He’s got a point.”

“He’s a thieving little shit,” Tony said. His next comment was directed at Rocket. “You’re showing me how you accessed my personal files before you leave.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Rocket said, rolling his eyes. “You got a lot of security holes, Stark.”

“Can we focus again?” Steve said, finally speaking up. “So, we go back and hide the Space Stone. Maybe Rocket is right and the universe will… what?”

“Self-correct,” Rocket said in a smug voice.

“So, no harm, no foul,” Tony replied, throwing out his arms. “We’ve gotta try, though.”

Clint turned around. “Okay, but how are going to do that? I mean, we can’t just waltz in there and take it out of our own hands.”

Tony smiled. “We have a…”

Bruce clenched his teeth together and said, “Tony, if you say Hulk, so help me—”

“A _super spy_ with cat-like skills and lots of devious tricks up her sleeve. Right, Natasha?” Tony asked with a wide grin that was probably driven by too much caffeine. He was on the upswing of his manic cycle.

Steve looked over to Nat and raised his brows. She just shook her head and said, “It would probably be best if none of our past selves knew the location of the Stone. There isn’t any evidence he can track them, right? If no one knows where it is, then no one can say.”

“Right,” Tony agreed. “Let’s vote. Are we actually going to try this?”

Despite the arguments before, it was unanimously agreed they would attempt to travel back and secure the Space Stone in a place other than Asgard. Steve had no idea how they were going to accomplish this without fucking with the heads of everyone involved. It was his major concern and the only thing he could add, considering that his strong suit was more tactical than science or technology.

Three hours later, they had papers strewn over the table with a timeline of events. It was decided that they needed to obtain the Stone before the battle was complete or at the point during which there was the most chaos. It was the key piece in opening the portal from the top of Stark Tower. The person who closed the portal couldn’t go because their past self would be at the location of the Tesseract. This disqualified Natasha since she’d been the one up on the Tower that day. Bruce was out. His past self was at the scene and if anyone were to see him and Hulk side-by-side, it would cause problems.

“Rocket, Nebula, and Scott are out,” Bruce said. “Tony’s Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing technology will only allow those who were there to go back. And when we go back, we’ll have to go back to where we were in that moment, which might not be where we need to be.”

“Don’t touch that!” Tony snapped at Rocket, who had been reaching out a paw to touch the white box on the table.

“Touchy, touchy,” Rocket replied, holding both hands up.

“I’ll go,” Steve said.

“It’s my technology. I’m going back, too.” Tony’s eyes were shining. He looked like he was high on scientific discoveries.

“And me,” Clint added.

“You have Lila to take care of, Clint,” Steve said.

“Well, I’m not planning on _dying_ , Rogers. Darcy will watch her while I’m gone. Plus, I think the three of us could pass for us from a few years ago. I mean, I know you two have popped a few gray hairs, but I’m still looking good.” Clint smiled like he didn’t have a care in the world. Steve saw right through the lie because he was feeling the weight of the situation more than ever now that Clint had mentioned Darcy.

If they succeeded, then his life might go back to the way it was. That meant he’d be on the run, hiding from the government. And he would have never met Darcy Lewis at all. He wouldn’t even know she existed. He swallowed and looked down at the table and all the messy notes on the timeline.

“You okay?” Nat asked under her breath.

“Yeah,” he lied. “I’m fine.”

* * *

Steve stayed in his room that night while Bruce and Scott worked on fabricating identical devices that he, Tony, and Clint would wear on the back of their hands. He sat in his favorite armchair in silence and thought about what he’d do if she knocked on his door. Would he answer? Would they end up in his bed again? He still hadn’t changed the sheets and they still smelled like her. Steve glanced over and imagined he could see the indentation of her body in his mattress. He couldn’t, but her presence was still there.

Darcy never knocked, so he never had to make the decision. The next morning, he was charged with the task of waking what would be a very pissed off Tony Stark. Nat had slipped a sedative in his coffee and knocked him out. He’d have stayed up all night to work on the devices with Bruce and Scott if they’d allowed it, but Tony would be of no help if he were fumbling around and operating under no sleep. After listening to Tony Stark complain and blame, Steve took the stairs down to the lab and sat in the corner as Bruce and Scott worked.

The devices made Steve nervous. Technology wasn’t really his thing. Bucky had always loved new tech, but Steve preferred the good old fashioned way over flying cars and teleportation. That didn’t mean he wasn’t willing to strap one of those things on his hand and send himself back four or five years if it meant they had a chance of saving so many people. Tony walked into the lab and Steve walked out. He ran around the city most of the morning and into the afternoon, crossing the bridge into Brooklyn and looping through his old neighborhood that was barely recognizable. Time moved fast. Sometimes it felt like he was always getting left behind while everything else barrelled forward toward some future he couldn’t even imagine.

Darcy was heavy on his mind. He wondered if she knew what they were planning. Surely she did by now. Clint would have told her when he asked her to keep an eye on Lila in his absence. Would she be relieved to get back to her life? Would she miss him? No, he thought, she couldn’t miss him because in the future they were trying to create, she didn’t even know him. Thinking about it made Steve feel empty again.

Just as he turned the corner and decided to make his way back to Stark Tower, his phone rang. Steve ducked into an alley and answered the call from Natasha.

“Yeah?” he asked, pulling in a deep breath.

“Where are you?”

“Running.”

“I take it you didn’t talk to her last night?”

Steve felt his jaw tighten. “Who?”

“Don’t act clueless, Steve. She’s not dumb. She knows what it means if this works.”

“What does it mean?” he asked, hand on his hip as he turned his back to the street.

Nat huffed out a breath of air that told him he was on her last nerve. He knew the sound well.

“She should be happy,” he said. “If this works, she gets her life back.” When Nat didn’t reply, he said, “Is she okay?”

“She will be, no thanks to you. She knows you’re avoiding her, though. I thought you were smarter than that.”

“I thought you wanted me to keep my hands off her,” he snapped. “And then you turn around and try to set us up like this is high school.”

“I thought you could help each other,” Nat said. “I thought she might be good for you. You checked out on all of us and I saw that turning around after you started spending time with her.”

Steve ran a hand roughly through his hair and pulled the hood back up to cover himself again. It was a warm day for late-October, but he didn’t want to be recognized. He opened his mouth several times, but nothing came out.

“Look, Steve, nobody can save you but you. I just thought having something good in your life would help.”

“I destroy everything good in my life,” he replied before his throat closed up on him. Steve leaned into the brick wall of the building beside him, bracing his free arm against it. “I don’t want to lose her, too.”

“You’ve gotta have her to lose her.”

Nat was right. It was just that sometimes it felt like he had her. When she was lying on top of him, her breath hot on his neck… Hadn’t she been his then? Maybe it was just for a moment. She wasn’t easy to hold, slipping away because he couldn’t get his shit together and actually make a decision.

“It was never supposed to be like this,” he told Nat. “I wasn’t looking for this.”

“Yeah, well, shit happens. You play with fire and you get burned,” she said. There was no sympathy in Nat’s voice.

“I’m on my way back.”

“Remember, you need to shave and cut your hair. If you show up looking like that, me from five years ago is in for a mindfuck. Tony found some old gear in storage. He said your star-spangled underwear was in the box. I’m assuming that means he found your old suit.”

“I know. I’ll stop at a barbershop on my way back.”

“Did you know Darcy cut Clint’s hair?”

Steve felt a surge of jealousy and then felt disgusted with himself. “What?”

“Her mom was a hairstylist. Darcy used to cut her friends’ hair for cash under the table when she was in school.” Nat paused before saying, “You might know that if you’d have asked about her life.”

“I know about her life.” So, it was a little bit of a lie. Things always devolved into mind blowing sex when he was around Darcy. He had no incentive to stop that because he _liked_ it. She liked it, too. Hell, she initiated it sometimes.

“I’m just saying she could probably cut your hair, too.”

Steve didn’t reply because all he could think about were Darcy’s fingers fisted in his hair as he ate her out. “I gotta go,” he told Nat before hanging up.


	10. Chapter 10

> _”You shouldn’t know these things and be so awfully well in tune. Go as if not aware, be like those others that assume. You knew and still you managed to find my stare.” - Maxwell (Know These Things: Shouldn’t You)_

Darcy was watching Nebula devour the second half of her veggie korma from the only Indian place still open in a twenty block radius when Steve Rogers decided to grace them with his presence. She kept her eyes on Nebula. “You better come up for air,” she told the woman.

Nebula glanced up before turning her attention back to the plate. “This is very flavorful.”

“Earth is good for something, I guess,” Darcy told her.

They sat in silence while Steve stood in the doorway and watched. Darcy felt sick over the way things had ended a couple nights before and had made a promise to herself to steer clear of Steven Rogers. The way he’d shut her out after they’d had sex made her question all that intimacy she’d felt with him only minutes before when she’d been lying on his chest. She’d stayed there beside him in the bed, wondering what he was thinking until she’d realized he was probably thinking that he wished they’d fucked in her bed so he could make his quick exit like usual. Not one to overstay her welcome and feeling like her pride was damaged, Darcy had gotten up and left with tears in her eyes. He’d gotten one good cry from her and that was it.

“Why are you standing in the doorway,” Nebula asked Steve, irritation in her voice.

He cleared his throat and said, “I was looking for Darcy.”

Nebula pointed her fork in Darcy’s direction. “She’s here, but I believe you know that already. Talk.”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Darcy told both of them.

“She doesn’t want to hear it. Stop hovering,” Nebula said, waving her fork to dismiss Steve.

“Darcy,” Steve said, a pleading quality to his voice.

She finally looked over and saw him standing there looking just as handsome as ever with his hair pushed back, wearing a pair of gray sweatpants and a white tee. “Not interested, Steve,” Darcy told him.

“I know Clint told you what we’re going to try to do tomorrow. I need to talk to you.” His eyes looked sad and that’s what started melting the ice she’d packed around her heart. Fuck him and those eyes.

“Then talk.”

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Darcy, I’d really rather do this in private.”

“Do what, Steve? Talk? Is that what we do in private?”

Nebula stopped eating and looked from Darcy to Steve and back again.

Darcy watched the muscles of his throat contract as he swallowed. “I’d like you to cut my hair,” he said softly.

“Is that code for something?” Nebula asked Darcy. “Would you like me to remove him from the room?”

Darcy laughed at how quickly Nebula had decided to trust her and defend her. Nebula was the abused and tortured daughter of a madman and she was quicker to trust than Steven fucking Rogers. “No, I think he really wants a haircut,” she told her new friend. Then, looking up at Steve, she said, “We can do it in here. I’ll go get my scissors.”

“I’d like to talk to you in private, Darcy.” When she didn’t respond right away he closed his eyes and sighed deeply. “Just talk. I promise.”

“What do you think?” Darcy asked Nebula.

The other woman shifted her gaze to Steve as he stood in the doorway looking like he wanted to sink through the floor. Good. Darcy wanted him to feel just as shitty as she had. She could have forgiven him for freaking out on her after that last time, but not bothering to come around the next day to apologize had stung even more.

“He looks very pathetic,” Nebula said.

Darcy laughed, but there was no humor in it at all. “Yeah, he does. I guess he’s suffered enough.” She pushed herself up from the table and looked at Steve. “You wanna do this in my place so you can leave when you want?” It was a low blow and petty, but it felt good to take the jab.

“My place,” he said, turning sideways so she could slip past him and out of the kitchen. He smelled like soap and sweat. He’d probably been running around the city like a lunatic. Darcy tried to keep her body from reacting to him, but it was difficult. Most of her memories of being alone with Steve involved toe-curling orgasms.

She walked down the hallway in front of him. “I’ll go get the scissors and meet you at your place,” she said over her shoulder.

The kit they’d lifted from a closed beauty salon on the third floor of the Tower was sitting on Darcy’s kitchen counter. It held scissors, electric clippers, a straight razor, and a comb. Darcy worried that she’d gotten rusty, but after starting on Clint, it all came back to her. She’d used an old picture from years ago and tried to make him look as similar as possible. Now it looked like she needed to do the same with Steve, but she didn’t have a picture. Of course, she’d seen him on the news years ago. She was a red-blooded woman, after all. That kind of man usually made pretty much everyone sit up and take notice. However, Darcy sure hadn’t been looking at his hair when he had those arms and that ass.

When she opened the door to her place, she saw Nat standing in the hallway. “Did he talk you into a haircut?” Nat asked.

“Unfortunately,” Darcy replied. She’d confided in Nat earlier that day about how Steve had shut her out. “Am I being a sucker?”

Natasha smiled. “No, you’re not being a sucker. I’ll text you a picture for reference.”

The offer was a small one, but it allowed Darcy to exhale out some of the stress she’d been feeling. As much as she was hurting over her own personal drama, she didn’t want to contribute to the mission not working when it could reverse all the terrible shit that had happened over the past few months. “Thanks, Nat.”

Steve opened is door two seconds after she knocked like he’d been standing just on the other side and waiting for her to arrive. Unlike the last time when he’d answered in his underwear and pulled her into a kiss, he was still dressed in the baggy sweats and seemed nervous. Steve stepped back to let her enter. “Thanks,” he said.

“No prob, dude. You wanna do this in the bathroom?” Darcy winced at her choice of words as she remembered the last time they’d been in a bathroom together.

“Yeah,” he agreed, shutting the door and following her into the narrow bathroom. Darcy avoided eye contact with him, instead choosing to arrange the tools she needed to the left of the sink on the vanity. The six, round bulbs above the mirror lit the room in a soft glow.

Steve was a big guy who took up a lot of space. It was difficult being in such a tiny room with him even without the strange sexual relationship between them. Now all she could think about were his hands and mouth and cock as he slipped past her and sat on the toilet seat.

“Wet your hair in the sink or shower,” she said.

Steve hesitated for a moment before pulling his shirt off and turning on the tap in the shower so he could lean inside and duck his head under the spray. She watched him do this in the mirror with her back to him like that would be safer than turning around and being tempted to jump into the stall with him. That was the last thing her wounded pride needed and the one thing her body craved.

“Sit on the toilet sideways and face the mirror,” she told him.

He did as she’d directed without complaint or question. There was something off about the way he was holding himself and Darcy couldn't quite put her finger on it.

Instead of guessing, she said, “Are you worried about the mission?”

“Yes.”

She picked up the comb and stepped between his knees to run it through the strands of his hair. “What are you worried about? Failing? Can't get much worse than it is now, can it?”

He didn't reply. Instead, he closed his eyes and sat there while she combed his messy hair and then pulled up the reference picture of him at a press conference that Nat had texted. “Darcy, I'm sorry.”

She felt her stomach twist at his words. They sounded so heartfelt. “Sorry for what?”

“Night before last.”

“Sorry for what?” she repeated.

He cleared his throat as she lifted a section of hair that was surprisingly long and snipped it away with the scissors. “If I made you feel like you weren't welcome… If I did that then… I'm sorry.”

“If you did that? Steve, you know you did that.”

He is exhaled and closed his eyes again. “Look, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm supposed to have answers for everything and I don't have answers for anything. Nothing, sweetheart.”

“I don't know what that means,” Darcy admitted.

“I don't either. I'm no good with women.”

Darcy snipped some more before she said, “I find that hard to believe.”

“I made you feel like shit, didn't I? I don't know how to… I don't know how to make that better.”

“You're getting there.” And he was. She could tell he was being honest and she could also feel how difficult it was for him to say those words. Steve Rogers was probably excellent at repressing his feelings, so admitting that he had them was a big step. But just because he had feelings didn't mean he had _those_ kinds of feelings for her.

“If this works tomorrow…” He swallowed and inhaled deeply. “If it works then we'll have never met.”

There was that twist in her gut and ache in her heart. She thought it would have gone away by now. She'd cried over it last night after Clint and Nat had explained what they planned on doing. She wanted her life back with all her family and friends. That would mean losing Steve, though. Or maybe losing was the wrong word, partly because if it worked they would have never met and mostly because she'd never had him in the first place. She was just… comfort or a diversion.

“Yep,” she agreed, pressing her lips together and snipping away to take off some length.

He was silent for a long moment before saying, “You’ll be glad to be rid of me. Won't even remember all the shitty things I've done to you.”

The defeated tone in his voice cut open the heart she thought she'd hardened. Turns out, I am a big, old softie, Darcy thought as she stepped over his leg and stood behind him. Steve was watching her work in the mirror. Each time she glanced up all she could see were his sad eyes.

“I mean, I don't recall all of the things being shitty. There were some very good things.” She didn't dare look up when she gave him that little concession.

“Yeah? I thought it was all… great. You're… great.”

“Great?” she asked, giving him a little smile when she met his gaze in the mirror.

Steve's smile looked almost painful. “You're perfect, sweetheart. I was never worth your time.”

Blinking back her tears, Darcy focused on his hair again. “You better shut up or I'll accidentally-on-purpose cut the tip of your ear off, Rogers.”

He chuckled softly and nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

She worked in silence, glancing at the picture Nat sent her from years ago when he’d spoken to the media after the battle with the Chitauri. When she finished, Darcy stepped around to stand between his legs. She ran her fingers through his shorter hair under the guise of checking her work when really she just wanted to touch him. She’d been so angry and hurt earlier. Just with every other emotion toward Steve Rogers, they seemed to leak away like she was holding them in a sieve. The only constants were longing and lust.

Steve laid his hands on the outsides of her thighs and then hesitantly removed them before turning his head away from her hands. His eyes were closed and she had no idea what he was thinking. “There’s a straight razor in the kit if you want to shave with it. You could use the clippers to shorten it before,” Darcy told him.

Steve looked up at her from his seat on the toilet and there was nothing but warmth in his eyes. He gave her a tight smile and said, “Thanks, Darcy.”

“I’m scared,” she blurted out when he didn’t try to move.

“It’ll be okay. We’ll just… go back and hide the Tesseract and maybe it’ll all go back to normal. Maybe this time tomorrow we won’t even remember all this.”

“I wish I could remember you.”

His smile crinkled the corners of his eyes. She watched him look down at the floor between them before he said, “I can’t imagine not… remembering this.”

Darcy tilted her head back and blinked rapidly to stall the tears that threatened to run down her cheeks. She cleared her throat. “Maybe we’ll meet some other day. Maybe Thor and Jane will get back together and we’ll end up hanging out.”

“Maybe,” he said without looking up.

“Although, I don’t think it’ll be like this.”

That made Steve lift his gaze. “Like what?”

“Like crazy sex every time we’re in the same room. I mean, this is just happening because we’re trying to cope. Don’t think I’m disillusioned about your intentions or anything.”

He put his hands on her hips, but his touch was light. “Yeah, but I’d be crazy not to want you.”

“Future you—or is it past you—is probably stupid,” she agreed.

Steve chuckled softly. “That’s true because present me is kinda stupid, too.” He squeezed her hips gently and said, “You mind helping me with the beard?”

“I don’t mind, but I’ll have you know that I have no experience with shaving.”

He towered over her when he stood. Darcy tried to step sideways to give him the space he needed. Steve caught her with hands on her waist and easily lifted her until she was sitting on the vanity, just to the left of the sink. “You don’t need experience,” he whispered.

Darcy laughed softly as the feeling of butterflies in her stomach kicked into high gear. “Are you trying to get me to stick around or something? Just looking for excuses?”

Watching her lean over and lay the scissors and comb beside the kit, Steve said, “Yeah, I am.”

She swallowed and asked, “Why?”

“Because if this works, you and I won’t be able to do this. I’d like to enjoy it while I can.”

Narrowing her eyes at him as he opened the cabinet and pulled out a can of shaving cream, she said, “You wanna enjoy hanging out and shaving your beard?”

“I wanna enjoy spending some time with you.”

“We don’t do that, Steve. We have sex.”

“Maybe we should have done that,” he replied without missing a beat. The simple response made Darcy’s heart ache.

“Are you saying we shouldn’t have had sex or—”

Steve cut her off with, “I’m saying I should have stayed… after.”

His admission made the pit of Darcy’s stomach burn. “Oh,” she said.

Stepping into the space between her knees, Steve handed her the shaving cream and straight razor. “Here.”

Darcy waved both away so she could lean over and grab the electric clippers. “I’ll trim it as short as I can before I do that. I’m already terrified I’ll slit your throat.”

He chuckled as she turned the clippers on and grabbed his chin.

“Come here,” Darcy said.

“Yes, ma’am,” he whispered shifting closer until he was nestled between her thighs with his hands on her hips.

“I should have known I couldn’t be alone with you and not be seduced,” Darcy said.

He smiled. “I’m not doing anything but what you said, sweetheart.”

Darcy rolled her eyes and trimmed his beard until it was as close as she could get with the clippers. He never stepped back and never moved his hands from where they rested lightly on her hips. The wiry hair she’d removed was all over the floor and on the bare skin of her thighs. “Wet your beard,” she told him, affectionately patting his cheek.

Steve did as she asked by splashing water from the tap on his face. When he came back to stand between her legs, a few stray drops fell onto her thighs while she spread shaving cream on his handsome face.

“I’ll miss the beard. You look really, really hot with it.”

He shook his head and tried to suppress the smile on his face. “What do I look like without it?”

“Just really hot. Not really, _really_ hot.” Darcy held up the straight razor. “I think you should do this part. I'm nervous.”

“I trust you. You won't hurt me.”

“I might slice your face open, dude.”

“I heal fast. It’s worth it.”

Steve stood still while she carefully scraped the blade over his skin. After several minutes of painstakingly gentle shaving, he was cleaned-faced with only two small spots of blood. The cuts were healed by the time she wiped a washcloth over them. “All done,” she told him. He looked so different but still like himself. His eyes were the same brilliant blue with that melancholy stare. “I wanna say I'll miss you, but… if this works then I won't even know you.” Saying the words made her chest burn.

Steve moved his hands from her hips so he could wrap his arms around her, pulling Darcy forward in the counter until he had her in a full hug. She breathed in his scent and wrapped her arms around his waist. His chest rumbled under the ear she'd laid on it when he said, “You're better off without me, sweetheart.”

She frantically blinked away the wetness gathering in her eyes. “Oh, I don't know about that. I've never had this quantity and quality of orgasms before.”

He chuckled and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Look,” Steve said, “I know I told you I just wanted you to cut my hair, but…”

Darcy waited for him to continue, but he didn’t. His body was warm and solid and his hips were wedged between her open thighs, though she couldn’t feel any erection there. She wiggled her hips and pressed her nose into his shoulder so she could breathe in his scent. “If this works… technically we’ll have never even touched each other. That’s… wild.”

“I know,” he whispered, his breath tickling her hair.

“Kinda makes me sad.”

“Yeah,” Steve agreed.

“Why did you shut down on me last night?”

The tension in his body melted away and he softened in her arms. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I feel like… I was numb. I wanted to be numb because it was better than the alternative. And then they start talking about a real plan.” He swallowed and continued with, “And then there was you and everything that… I don’t know, Darcy. I just started feeling like I was fucking things up.”

Her temper flared for a moment when she said, “Fucking me was a mistake?”

“No,” Steve rushed to reply. “No, I just… I didn’t think it through when it began and then I started to get to know you a little better and…” He laughed and said, “I started feeling guilty about the way I was treating you. And everyone is talking about the technology Scott brought and how maybe we could use to reverse this or… I don’t know. I started thinking about what I was doing with you and how it wasn’t fair to you.”

“Or you,” Darcy said, her face still pressed against his shoulder.

“I don’t matter in this situation, sweetheart.”

“Ugh, you’re a self-sacrificing asshole.” She leaned back so she could look him in the face. He loosened his hold on her to allow it. “So, what are you saying? This was a mistake; we shouldn’t do it again? This was cool while it lasted; you’re not my cup of tea?”

“I should have treated you better; I wish it wasn’t ending,” he said.

Darcy wanted to cry. The stinging in her sinuses told her she was on the verge of tears. Instead, she laughed and said, “Oh, you treated me pretty fucking well, Steve. Like I said, never before have the orgasms been in such quantity and quality.”

He smiled softly at her. Seeing him without the beard and with his hair cut shorter felt strange. He looked younger and sweeter. He looked more like the Captain America that some kids had on their backpacks or their school notebooks. “Well, I try,” he whispered.

“You look too much like Captain America, Steve,” she said, smiling back. “It’s pretty weird.”

“You liked the beard?” he said in a teasing voice.

“Loved it and the hair.”

“Sorry to disappoint you with the old look,” he murmured, eyes on her lips.

She shook her head, the smile still on her face. “I wouldn’t call it disappointment. I mean, you could still hit it if you want.”

He dipped his head down and let his lips brush over the shell of her ear. The heat of his breath there made Darcy shiver. “I know what that means, you know.”

“Yeah? You took a twenty-first-century lingo class?”

“Yeah, I think that class was called Sam Wilson.” Steve pulled back and looked at her with sad eyes and a wry smile on his perfect lips. She knew it was because Sam Wilson was dead along with millions of other people.

Darcy reached up and patted his bare cheek. “You look so sad.”

“I am. Feels like it never ends and I just keep… fucking up every single time.”

“You don’t. Trust me.”

“If this works, I lose you,” he said.

Darcy swallowed the lump in her throat. “But you get everyone else back. That’s way better.”

He nodded. “Yeah.” She watched as he leaned in to kiss her. His eyes fluttered closed right before their lips met. Darcy closed hers right after, sliding her arms from around his torso to loop over his neck. It allowed Steve to deepen the kiss and lift her off the bathroom counter with his hands on her ass.

She hadn’t come here with this in mind. In fact, she’d been determined to avoid it, but at the moment being this close to him felt right. They were moving through his apartment when he pulled away so they could both inhale a ragged breath. “Are you taking me to bed?” she whispered.

“If you’ll let me,” he replied, pressing his forehead against hers.

“You know I will,” Darcy told him.

It was like a dream where she was underwater and things were moving so slowly, yet she had no control. He pressed his knee into the mattress and leaned down to lower her to the bed. Suddenly he was kissing her again and his hands were unbuttoning her denim shorts. Darcy’s hands were moving here and there, running over his shoulders and back, ruffling his hair, memorizing the lines of his body.

By the time he pushed himself off her enough that she couldn’t touch him, he’d pulled her shorts and panties down her legs from his position kneeling between her legs.

Darcy hastily did away with her shirt as he shifted back and forth to kick his sweats and boxers off. She was struggling with the clasp of her bra when Steve braced his hands on either side of her head and ducked down to kiss her neck. She managed to unhook the bra, and Steve lifted up enough to help her pull it off and discard it in the floor with the rest of their clothes.

“I think about you all the time,” he whispered before slotting his mouth over hers and slipping his tongue between her lips. Darcy moaned and arched her body up to meet his as he lowered himself to his elbows. She savored the way he shivered and the gooseflesh on his arms when she reached up and dragged her nails down the smooth plane of his back.

“Same,” Darcy told Steve, her lips on his and their breaths mingling. “All I do is think about you.” Her chest tightened as he pressed soft kisses on her cheeks and forehead and eyelids. “I don’t want to forget this.”

“Me neither, sweetheart,” Steve replied, kissing her lips before he dipped his head down to place open-mouthed, lingering kisses on her nipples and the swell of her breasts.

She held the sides of his head in her hands while he licked and sucked his way up to her neck. Closing her eyes, Darcy whispered, “A little part of me hopes it doesn’t work.” As soon as she said it, she felt her gut twist in guilt. “God, that was terrible of me to say. I’m sorry… I didn’t—”

“Don’t,” he hushed her with his face buried against her neck. “Don’t apologize. You just said what I was too ashamed to say myself.”

“We’re fucked up,” she told him, grabbing a fistful of his hair and dragging his mouth up so she could kiss him again, all tongues and lips and heat.

When they both pulled back to gasp for air, Steve was laughing softly. “We are fucked up, aren’t we?”

“Mmm, must be why I like you so much,” she teased. “This feels so weird without your beard. It’s like I’m actually making out with Captain America.” Darcy let the pads of her fingers caress the smooth skin over his jaw.

“You prefer Steve?” he asked.

“Definitely.”

Her answer made him smile. “I’ll grow it back for you.”

She grinned and then it faded to nothing as the reality hit both of them. If they were lucky, then that would never come to pass. If they were lucky, they’d never even meet.

“Fuck,” she muttered, closing her eyes.

“Maybe one day,” he murmured, giving the vague promise of something or nothing before kissing her again. She felt him reach down and adjust his erection until the blunt head of it was parting the lips of her pussy. “One day,” he said again as he tilted his hips and slid right up inside her like it was where he belonged.

The fullness of taking him made Darcy inhale a sharp breath. “Steve,” she whispered, grabbing onto his shoulders as he rocked into her. “Oh god… that feels so…”

His breath was hot on her face and his forehead was pressed to hers. Darcy wrapped her legs around him, hooking them over his hips. “Perfect,” Steve finished for her.

“Yes,” she hissed. “Please don’t stop.”

“I ain’t stoppin’, sweetheart,” he told her, scattering kisses anywhere he could reach—her face and neck, her chest and shoulders, her ears and hair. “You feel so fuckin’ good.” His voice close to her ear and the way he pushed into her made Darcy feel like electricity was coursing through her body.

She grabbed a fistful of his short hair and made him stop the wandering mouth and kiss her good and proper on her lips. She sucked his tongue into her mouth and reveled at the groan the action pulled from deep in his chest.

Steve held himself up with his elbows but managed to slip his forearms beneath her upper back enough to hold her body against his. Darcy arched into him, feeling overwhelmed and surrounded by Steve Rogers. The relentless snap of his hips pushed her closer to the edge, but what finally did her in was when he started rocking into her. The way he hit her clit made Darcy feel like he'd lit a fire between her legs. “Steve, I'm so close. You feel so good,” she whispered into his mouth as he rested his forehead against hers.

“Come for me, sweetheart. I wanna feel you. You're so good, so tight, so hot for me.”

That did it. His rough voice, breathless with desire, sent her careening into an orgasm. Her brain blanked out and she clutched at him, trying to merge her body with his. Steve thrust into her through the height of the orgasm before he groaned her name in her ear and came. His smooth strokes faltered, uneven as he rode out the pleasure and released himself deep inside her.

Steve scattered kisses over her ear and down her neck as he held her. She didn't dare unwrap her legs from him for fear he would leave her. His weight felt good on top of her and between her legs. She threaded her fingers through his short hair when he pressed his face into her neck and sighed. The high of her orgasm was quickly fading into anxiety over what he was about to do—what he was about to do right at that moment but also the next day when the devices they’d been working on were finished and ready to be used.

Her heart sank as Steve shifted above her. This was the moment that he’d roll away and she’d lie on the other side of the bed and feel the weight of his desire to be alone. It was the moment that she needed to collect her clothes and have that walk of shame back to her little studio apartment. She felt him slide his hands down to her hips and wiggle them underneath her ass. Darcy gasped when he smoothly rolled them over, holding her tight against him.

Steve settled onto his back with her straddling his hips and her chest pressed against his. Somehow, he was still inside her. Darcy shifted her hips before he stilled her by pulling her tighter against him. “You’ll get me going again,” he whispered, watching her with those gorgeous blue eyes.

She felt giddy over the change in his demeanor from last time. “That’s, like, an incentive, not a deterrent.”

He laughed softly and ran one of his hands over her hair. Darcy wanted to lean into his touch and purr like a cat. It took everything she had to maintain some emotional distance and not melt into his body as his other hand skimmed over her back.

“So, tomorrow,” she said.

“Mmm,” Steve replied, trailing his fingertips down her arms and then over her back again.

Darcy shivered in pleasure at his light touch. “I should, uh, let you get some sleep, then.”

“I’d like you to stay. If you want,” he whispered instead her hair.

She felt her throat close up and it took her several seconds before she managed to reply. “Yes, I want to.”

* * *

“Not that one, _that_ one.”

Darcy rolled her eyes and carried a small screwdriver over to Rocket. He snatched it away from her as she said, “Why do you use the surly attitude to keep people at arm’s length?”

He stopped what he was doing and looked up at her. “What?” he snapped.

Putting her hands on her hips, she said, “You heard me, dude.”

“Mind your own business.”

She sat down beside where he was working. “What are you doing?”

“Getting off this rock.”

“Is it so bad?”

“Yeah,” Rocket replied. “You wanna come with me?”

His question knocked her back on her proverbial heels. “Serious?”

“Yeah. You got good tunes and you ain’t too annoying.”

She smiled and shook her head. “Thanks, Rocket.”

He grunted an acknowledgment and buried his head back into the innards of the strange ship that had managed to get Tony and Nebula back to Earth a couple weeks after the incident. Darcy wanted to ask Rocket about whether he thought the plan to change the past would work, but it seemed pretty obvious he didn’t. Or maybe he just needed to keep busy. That was the entire reason she’d made her way up to the landing pad near the top of the building and searched him out. Listening to him grouse and clang things around was preferable to sitting downstairs and wringing her hands.

She’d fallen asleep on top of Steve and woken to his hands roaming over her body. They’d both been in a dreamy haze when he rolled her over and slipped inside her in the early hours of the morning. Steve’s breath had been hot on her neck and his body warm and unyielding as he moved on top of her. Neither of them had lasted long, especially when Steve had pressed the pad of his thumb against her clit and his lips against her ear, begging her to come for him. She’d fallen asleep with her back pressed against his front and that space between her legs almost uncomfortably wet from what they’d done twice that night.

That morning, she’d started her shower alone, but by the time she’d rinsed the conditioner from her hair and soaped up her body, Steve had stepped in with her for a repeat of the last time they’d shared a shower. Except this time he didn’t let her finish him off. Instead, he’d taken her against the blue tile of the shower wall before he’d gently used his hands to clean the mess he’d made of her pussy.

She squeezed her legs together, remembering the easy way he had touched her, spreading her lips and letting the water rinse away their cum. He’d been quiet, but intense. He’d watched her dress with a strange expression on his face, though Darcy hadn’t been able to dissect it because she had been and still was too lost in her own anxiety and heartache. Was this more than sex? He was an easy person to care for, especially when he was sweet with her. She’d never had that electric chemistry with anyone else, so wouldn’t it just be her luck to experience it with someone she could never be with. He was out there, presumably in the past, trying to undo everything they’d done and more. If he succeeded, all that chemistry, even the tenderness between them the night before, would just be undone.

Darcy’s heart felt heavy. She couldn’t imagine not knowing Steve Rogers now that she’d spent time with him. She dropped her head and sighed.

“You want me to rig something up to his door? Hurt him, not kill him?”

She looked up and saw Rocket watching her. “What?”

“Rogers. You want me to kick his ass?”

Darcy laughed softly and shook her head. “No. He’s okay. It’s just the situation.” After a brief pause, she said, “Thanks, Rocket. I didn’t know you were so sweet.”

“I ain’t sweet. I was aiming to knock him out with a live wire on his doorknob.”

“Sweet,” she told him again. “Thanks for trying to make me feel better.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the supportive and lovely readers who leave me comments to let me know they are reading and enjoying. I ::heart:: you all. Now, what will happen with Steve and his trip back to the Battle of New York? Will it work? Will everything that has happened just poof away? Will Darcy even know who Steve is in the next chapter? Hmmm...


	11. Chapter 11

> _”Don't you just love the feeling of my fingertips, circling your lips? Don't you just love the desire taking hold of you? Well I can tell you do. I know all your favorite spots and tonight we will connect the dots.” - The Spill Canvas (Connect the Dots)_

The shift back to the present was jarring and almost painful. Steve braced himself when it felt like his stomach dropped into his feet and his heart climbed up into his throat. He wondered when it would happen, when he would forget that he’d had his hands all over Darcy’s body, when he’d forget how it felt to be buried deep inside her with their mouths fused together. It would be any moment now. Any moment.

He hit the landing pad hard, tumbling forward and barely catching himself before his face smacked into the concrete floor. _Darcy_. Shouldn’t he not know her name if this had worked?

Clint groaned and rolled onto his back. “Did it work?” he asked.

“About time you three decided to show up.”

All three of them looked up to see Rocket standing there with a black box in his hand. Nebula was behind him. Steve struggled to his feet as his mind reeled with feelings that were at odds with each other. Whatever they had done hadn’t fixed much of anything if those two were still in Stark Tower. It meant so many were still gone, including Bucky. The hopelessness and disappointment almost took his breath away. The guilt was strong, too. It was almost like reliving the second right after they’d all been scattered by the wind as dust. All these months of numbness just washed away as he felt like he’d been taken right back to that moment when all had been lost.

There was also a strange elation and anticipation over Darcy. He clearly remembered how it had felt to fall asleep with her in his arms and how it felt to wake up to and take her in the weak light of early morning. He remembered the shower and her body like putty in his hands, pliant and gorgeous and so very willing. He remembered her hands on his face as she carefully shaved his beard off and the sweet way she smiled at him. He remembered it _all_.

“Maybe we remember everything but just because we were there when the fix happened,” Tony said, pushing himself up and looking over at Rocket. “Did Thanos…”

Nebula snorted and turned to walk away right as Rocket said, “Did he what? Did he vaporize half the galaxy because he wanted to be a dick? You know what?” He tapped one claw against his chin. “You know, I think he just might have.”

“Fuck,” Clint muttered, rolling over and pushing himself to his feet to stand beside Tony and Steve.

“Yeah, dumbass,” Rocket replied.

“But it worked. We stashed the Tesseract in that cave.” Tony looked at Steve, his eyes wide and naked pain on his face. The rare show of emotion from Tony made Steve feel like shit. “There’s no way anyone knew it was there. No way. We were the only ones and we wouldn’t have told anyone,” Tony said.

“Where are the others?” Steve asked Rocket.

“Don’t know. Probably in the lab. I’ve been busy _working_ on something that will actually help.”

The three men ignored Rocket and moved toward the elevator that would take them down a few floors to the laboratory that Bruce and Tony had been sharing with Scott Lang. None of them spoke on the ride down with the exception of Tony’s muttered, “I don’t believe it.”

Steve’s anxiety was through the roof and his stomach was clenched up as he tried to make sense of things. He’d gone up to the top of the Tower to take the Tesseract from its spot right after Nat had closed the portal. He’d explained that he planned on taking the Tesseract to a remote location to hide it—that the fewer people who knew where it was, the better. He’d told her to never mention it again. Steve didn’t think he could have made the request of anyone else and actually believe they could keep the information to themselves, but if anyone could, it would be Nat. It was a stroke of luck that she was the only person from the past they had to convince.

Clint had distracted Steve’s past self with an invented emergency involving trapped citizens while Tony and Steve took the Tesseract to a cave that had been used in the past as a SHIELD storage record storage facility in the Nevada desert. It had been abandoned a couple years before, but many of the safeguards were still in place to keep the location unknown and protected. It wasn’t a sure bet, but it was better than anything. If they pulled this off, no one in the past would know where the Tesseract was when Thanos showed.

By the time they were back from stashing the Stone, Loki had been placed in restraints and Thor was questioning Nat about the location of the Tesseract. Steve had eavesdropped as she looked Thor in the eyes and told him a blatant lie—that it had fallen from the building and was lost. It was at the moment that Steve had seen his past self and the present Clint making their way down the street. He had made sure he and Tony were out of sight as Clint had fallen away and joined them on the damaged second floor of a building across the street.

She’d passed the information along to the others and they began the fruitless search for the Tesseract in the rubble. It was strange to see their past selves just yards away, digging through the concrete and steel beams.

“It was under an extreme energy source. It’s possible it burned out, disintegrated,” the past Tony had told everyone while he limped through the wreckage. Natasha had backed him, telling even more lies, her eyes cutting over to Steve’s past self who was oblivious to what had transpired. They’d returned not long after, Steve only thinking of preparing himself for a future without Darcy right before the lurching feeling caused by the device on his wrist.

The three of them walked into the lab, likely looking as weary as they felt. It hadn’t been a fight to change the past, but the toll it had taken on them to put forth the effort without the payoff was a heavy weight to carry.

Bruce and Scott were looking down at a diagram on the table when Steve pushed open the lab door and held it for Tony and Clint. Nat was standing just behind Bruce and she walked around to greet the three men. Steve’s eyes, however, went to where Darcy Lewis was sitting in a desk chair. Their eyes locked and she stood up slowly, biting her lower lip.

“You’ve returned!” Thor’s voice boomed as he made his way from where he’d been standing in the corner.

“Did you get the Tesseract?” Nat asked. “Did you move it from the cave?”

As her question sunk in, Steve shifted his gaze from Darcy to Nat. “What?” he asked.

“Did you move it from the cave? Did you destroy it? What happened?”

“What?” Tony asked. And that very same moment, Clint said, “Where is Lila?” His question was directed at Darcy.

Suddenly everyone was talking and nobody was listening. “Stop!” Steve said raising his voice. “Stop!”

“Is she okay?” Clint said, his voice breaking the momentary silence.

“Yeah, she’s in your room watching a movie. I left her there, like fifteen minutes ago.” Darcy’s response made Clint take off toward his room where he could check on his daughter.

“What did you say about the cave?” Steve asked Nat.

“You went back to move the Tesseract so he couldn’t find it in the cave. What happened?”

“No,” Tony replied, “we went back to keep the Tesseract out of Asgard. When the hell did you get back, Thor?”

“I’ve been here for months. What are you talking about?”

“You left to find your people,” Steve said.

“My people are here. My brother is watching over them.”

“Your brother?” Tony said, voice raised as he ran a hand roughly through his hair.

Steve stepped back and the pieces fell into place. They’d changed the past, but it hadn’t been enough to keep the Space Stone from Thanos. Everyone else thought they’d gone back to remove the Stone from the cave, not keep it from Asgard. Either way, they’d lost the fight and Thanos had won.

Tony was questioning Thor about Loki. Thor’s face had gone stormy as he defended his brother. “He fought to save Asgard! He fought by my side and saved our people.”

“It’s true,” Bruce chimed in.

“He’s homicidal!” Tony said. “You told us Thanos killed him.”

“What?” Thor asked.

Steve held his hand out and placed it on Thor’s chest. “We went back, but it was to keep the Stone out of Asgard. Loki took the Tesseract from the chamber there. Your transport was intercepted by Thanos and he killed half your people and Loki to get the Stone.”

“No,” Thor said, “we were intercepted by Thanos and Loki took as many as he could with Valkyrie. They arrived on Midgard two days before I did.”

Bruce stepped over and said, “Wait, how do you think I got here?”

“A magic rainbow in the sky?” Tony snapped. “I don’t know, Bruce. What the fuck?”

Steve met Bruce’s eyes as the other man realized what Steve was starting to piece together. The room got quiet for a moment as it sank into everyone else’s minds.

Nat sat down heavily onto a metal stool by the table. “You changed things, but not Thanos killing everyone. Why don’t you know what you changed?”

“I don’t know,” Steve said.

“We need to sit down and compare. It’s possible you remember the averted timeline because you were the ones who went back to change it.” Bruce’s eyes were wide and frantic.

“But we lived it,” Tony said. We were here all those years. We were here up until…”

“You’ve been gone for three days. We were trying to figure out how to find you,” Scott chimed in.

“How did Rocket and Nebula get here?”

“Nebula came with Tony in a ship,” Nat said.

“Rocket came with me after Stormbreaker was forged,” Thor added.

So, not everything had changed, but enough had shifted to change the fate of Thor’s people. They were here instead of lost in the blackness of space.

Nat was watching him with accessing eyes. “I wondered why you acted like you had no idea what I was talking about when I asked you about the Tesseract that night. Thought you were just trying to maintain the lie. Thought you were just trying to keep the truth from coming out so no one could tell Thanos were it was.”

Steve felt sick. “I’m sorry. I did take the Tesseract, but it was _me_ , not me from years ago.”

“Fuck,” Tony muttered. “This is fucked.”

Clint walked into the room with Lila trailing behind him, her hand held tightly in her father’s. “What happened?” he asked as everyone stopped talking.

“Everything and nothing,” Tony replied.

* * *

They were all sitting around the conference table with the weight of failure heavy in the air. Steve wished he could conjure up the numbness that he’d cultivated over the weeks after the battle with Thanos, but it was pretty much gone. The hope their plan had provided had ripped the scab off and now he was just a raw and open wound. Well, it was because of that and what he was feeling for the woman sitting quietly in a chair at the opposite end of the table.

They’d all compared their versions of events and found that the biggest shift was averting Loki’s death and the arrival of Thor’s people. There were, undoubtedly, other ripples from their actions, but those weren’t so easily determined. Messing with the past was a delicate business and didn’t guarantee success. Thanos had tracked down the Stone anyway. Bruce suspected he was able to detect the power thrown off by the Tesseract, although this was something they hadn’t considered possible before. Security footage had shown one of his minions take the Stone without any resistance. Within twenty-four hours, they had found themselves fighting a war in Wakanda against the Outriders and trying to protect the last remaining Stone in Vision’s head from Thanos. The plan had failed spectacularly.

“So, we go back and try again. We need to destroy it,” Tony said during a lull in the conversation.

“How do we destroy it?” Bruce asked. “I don’t know of anything with the power necessary. I mean, Wanda could do it but she’s… dead. And without the threat, how are you going to convince past Wanda to murder Vision?”

Steve’s mind wandered to Darcy. She hadn’t said much at all since they’d returned. He thought about the differences between his recollections and those of everyone who had stayed behind. He thought about how it was very possible that she didn’t know him the way he knew her at all. What if that night in the stairwell hadn’t happened? What if changing that one thing had taken her away from him? If they’d never had sex except in his mind in a past that had never happened, then he couldn’t in good conscience try to initiate sex with her again. He’d probably just end up hurting her. He’d known that back then, but he hadn’t cared. Now he cared too much.

He needed to find a way to ask her without tipping his hand, but he couldn’t even figure out how to excuse himself and her from the impromptu meeting. She glanced at him now and then, but her eyes were unreadable. He licked his lower lip as he thought about the way she tasted or the velvety softness of her tongue. Darcy happened to look up at him right then, a haunted look in her eyes. Did she know? Did she remember what was for him only last night when she’d wrapped her legs around him and let him rock into her body? And if she did, was she regretting that she still remembered it because that invariably meant they’d failed at saving everyone.

The sky was dark and there were raindrops hitting the window. A thunderstorm was coming from the look of things. The empty coffee cups and cranky faces told the story of how long they’d been sitting at the table going through scenarios and options. It was well after two o’clock in the morning.

He needed to speak to Darcy. Not knowing was eating him alive. He leveled his gaze on her and swallowed all the anxiety trying to escape his throat as he tilted his head toward the door. She gave a slight nod of her head. It was enough. It felt like old times, like that first night he’d made that non-verbal suggestion they find what comfort could be had in each other.

Standing up, Steve excused himself. Darcy was still seated when he walked behind her. He reached down and grabbed her hand, pulling her out of the chair and behind him. She kept up and didn’t question his urgency to be alone with her.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Tony said, eyebrows lifted. “What’s this?”

“It’s none of your business, Tony,” Steve replied.

“Darcy?” Bruce asked, eyebrows raised.

“Uh, Steve and I need to talk. He’s probably worried I didn’t water his plants while he was away,” she told him as Steve pulled her from the room and down the hall.

It irritated Steve that he couldn’t keep his mind on the mission, but he’d also learned his lesson. He wouldn’t defer and push back what he wanted until the mission was done. Maybe that meant he wasn’t as good of a man as he’d been, but he found it difficult to care that much as he pulled Darcy down the hall and around the corner. They passed the kitchen and were finally alone. “What do you remember?” he asked her.

“What do _you_ remember?” she asked.

He stopped and turned to look at her for the first time since he’d dragged her out of the conference room like a neanderthal. Her eyes were bright and her pink lips were parted. She was in a black dress with a pleated skirt and a scooped neckline. There were white canvas shoes on her feet, and she’d drawn blue and purple stars on them with markers. “Where did we meet?” The idea of their past differing was making him sick to his stomach.

“The lobby of the building. Is that what you remember?” She seemed nervous, as if she shared his fear.

“Yes. Where… where did we… the first time?” He couldn’t bear to ask her where they fucked for the first time until he knew they had for sure.

“The stairwell on my third night here,” she said, watching for his reaction.

Steve squeezed her hand to reassure her

“And then the women’s bathroom right there. Against my hallway wall, in my bathroom, in my bed... _twice_ , in your room when I got mad at you for avoiding me. Three days ago in your bed and shower after… after I cut your hair and helped you shave.”

Her recitation of each time he’d had the privilege of putting his stupid hands on her perfect body made Steve wanted to collapse in relief. “ _Yes_ ,” he said.

“Oh, thank god,” Darcy replied. “I was worried I remembered it, but you didn’t. Like you didn’t remember Loki showing up with Asgard and, and, the Stone being taken from the SHIELD cave.”

He yanked her closer and proceeded down the hallway until they got to the ladies’ room.

“I was so worried about you,” she said when he opened the door and pulled her inside the bathroom with him.

“Felt like I was only gone for a few hours.”

“Three days. We thought you might have died or got stuck, but nothing changed,” she said. Steve turned to face her, putting his hands on her hips. Darcy laid her hands on his chest like this was so familiar for her, so easy. It made the tightness in his chest release just a little. Darcy frowned and continued with, “Well, I guess things did change, but not the most important things.”

Steve backed her up against the counter that held the sinks. “The incident?” he guessed. Surely that was the only important thing that needed changing.

“And our history. Even though, I guess I wouldn’t have known if that changed. I was worried you didn’t remember—that it was all in the past—when you showed up and we realized that what happened to us didn’t happen to you.” She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Fuck, this is confusing.”

Steve lifted her up to sit on the edge of the counter and moved to stand between her legs. “I know, sweetheart. But I remember you. I remember it all.”

Her eyes fluttered closed as he pressed open-mouthed kisses to her throat, eventually taking her mouth with his and slipping his tongue between her plump lips. It was like coming home. Her taste and feel were so familiar, so welcoming as she yielded to him. “We happened either way,” she whispered against his lips.

“We did,” he agreed, feeling that tightness in his chest that he hadn’t felt in years. He pulled in a ragged breath and kissed her again when he realized that the feeling was only familiar because it had been there with Peggy. He’d thought it wasn’t possible to feel that way about a woman again. He’d thought that ship had sailed. How was this possible? He didn’t even know Darcy that well. He was more acquainted with her body than her mind. That had never been him. He just wasn’t that guy.

He cock was pressed up against the heat between her legs, and he wanted to wish away the layers of clothing between them. Maybe he _was_ that guy after all. He didn’t want to be, but the facts were there. He’d gone about it all wrong and still gotten it right somehow. She was in his arms and kissing him like she couldn’t think of a better place to be.

Without breaking the kiss, Steve flipped the skirt of her dress up and hooked his fingers in the hips of her panties. Darcy groaned into his mouth as she shifted her hips, lifting up so he could pull the panties down her legs. Her hands that had been holding his face dropped to his belt, unbuckling it and flipping the button of his pants open. Steve slid the zipper down and pushed the pants and his boxers down just far enough to free his cock.

“Please,” she whispered in his ear. If he hadn’t been painfully hard already, her plea would have galvanized him.

“I got you, sweetheart,” he whispered, one hand at the small of her back and the other gripping the base of his cock so he could press it to her opening. She was hot and unbelievably wet, considering his lack of patience with foreplay. She deserved so much better, but he was weak and she was the only comfort he had now that he’d failed not once, but twice.

Steve’s eyes almost rolled back in his head once he was fully inside her. Darcy rocked her hips on the edge of the vanity, her ass hanging off. Bending his knees a bit more, he pulled out and thrust back inside, savoring the way her body tightened up around his dick. “Steve,” she said, whispering his name like a fucking prayer. Her hands were cupping his face, holding him still so she could press a hot, open-mouthed kiss on his lips. Steve growled and nipped at her full lower lip as he moved his hips back and forth. It wasn’t sweet or slow, but she made it intimate by holding his face and sucking his tongue into her mouth while he fucked her.

She definitely deserved better than what he’d given her, but he’d be damned if he was going to stop. She’d have to tell him to get lost. Or he’d have to die. For the first time in months, he didn’t feel ambivalent to death. Maybe that was partly because they were actively making plans to reverse what had happened, but Steve knew it was mostly because of Darcy.

“You feel so good, sweetheart,” he whispered after trailing kisses over her jawline and up to her ear.

Her sweet laugh was breathless and drenched with sex. “You, too. Oh _god_ , Steve. You… too…”

“I want you to come for me, Darcy,” he said before he sank his teeth into her earlobe. Steve moved his hand from her hip to where their bodies connected and swiped his thumb right over the protruding button of flesh and nerves nestled at the top of her slit. “Come, come, come…” He said it like a chant as he rubbed her. He felt fingers fist his short hair as she pulsed around his dick. Watching in fascination and adoration, he saw her head drop back to bare her neck and the straining tendons of it. Her sweet lips were parted and she made a keening noise as she came hard, gripping his cock so tight he almost missed a stroke back inside her wet heat. That alone was enough to set him off. Steve clenched his teeth together and growled low in his throat as his balls tightened and he unloaded himself deep inside her pussy.

When he opened his eyes, his chin was on her shoulder and the mirror behind her was inches away from his face. His pupils were blown wide, making his eyes look dark. One of her hands was fisted in her hair and the other was squeezing his shoulder. His lips were dark pink from kissing her and he looked like he was wrecked. Steve hoped Darcy looked the same when he pulled away just enough to take in her face. She did look just as out of sorts as he did.

“You okay, sweetheart?” he asked.

“Never better,” she replied, her chest rising and falling with her labored breaths. When she realized what she’d said, she laughed softly and pressed her forehead to his collarbone. “I mean, like, the situation with the universe could be way better, but my sex life is, like, tip-top right now. It’s fabulous.”

Her joke made Steve chuckle. He pulled out and reached down to yank his pants up, realizing exactly where they were and how the door could be opened by anyone. “Agreed,” he said, bending over and snatching her panties off the floor before slipping them in the pocket of his pants.

“Are you stealing my panties?” she asked him.

Steve could still see a glimpse of her pussy from this angle, but she quickly covered it by flipping her skirt down and slipping off the counter. “I’m taking them home for you.”

“Does this mean you’re taking me home, too?”

He smiled. “Yes. If you want me to.”

“You gonna stay the night?”

“If you’ll let me.”

She reached up and patted his cheek, her fingertips soft against his clean-shaven face. “You don’t have to ask. You can always stay.”

Steve reached up and encircled her wrist with his fingers, so she would keep touching his face. “What do you think? Beard or no beard?”

Darcy scrunched her nose up and gave him a brilliant smile. “I don’t know. I kinda miss the beard. The beard was Steve. This all-American boy look seems like Captain America. And while I’m all about doing my duty for my country and satisfying the Captain’s need for hot sex in a bathroom, I think I might like Steve more.”

Her words did something to him, gave him some bittersweet feeling of flying and falling at the same time. “I’m real glad to hear that, sweetheart. Real glad.”

“You know you blew our cover, right?”

He raised his brows and looked down at her beautiful face. “What?”

“You kinda announced to everyone that we’re sleeping together.”

Steve felt a little flush creep over his cheeks. She was right and he was just a little embarrassed that he’d been so brash in front of everyone. Privacy was something he’d always valued highly, and he didn’t like the idea of anyone else thinking of Darcy Lewis in a less than wholesome way. Anything else was his and his alone. “Yeah, sorry about that,” he told her.

Darcy patted his cheek and slipped her hand out of his grasp. He closed his eyes and smiled when she reached over and laced her fingers with his and tugged him toward the door of the bathroom. “You’re forgiven. I mean, I’m not mad about it, but I thought you might not want everyone knowing you and I are… you know, sleeping together.”

“They’re my friends. They’ll find out one way or another, eventually.”

“You don’t think it’s weird… you being all hot and perfect and… me?” She looked over her shoulder when she asked the question.

“Why would that be weird? You’re gorgeous.”

His compliment made her blush, turning her face a darker red than his had been. “You don’t have to flatter me to get me into bed.”

“Just telling you the truth, sweetheart. Only the truth.” Steve smiled as she pulled him out of the ladies’ room and down the hall to the stairwell. He could smell his scent all over her and the thought of his cum running down her shapely thighs made his dick stir. The giddy feeling he was experiencing was strange, but not unwelcome. All he had to do was pretend like Thanos hadn’t made a mess of things and maybe he could be happy, for once.


	12. Chapter 12

 

> _“It’s your body, you can yell if you want to, loud if you want to, scream if you want to. Just let me love you, lay right here, girl, don’t be scared of me.” - Robin Thicke (Sex Therapy)_

“Let go,” Steve murmured, his mouth right up against the lips of her pussy. “I got you.”

Darcy’s back was against the wall and her thighs were over his shoulders so he could support her weight and eat his fill of her pussy. The showerhead pounded water down on his back, but Steve seemed like all his focus was on her. Her breath hitched and her thighs trembled as he worked her over. She’d resisted letting him put both legs over his shoulders, telling him that he’d smother with her thighs bracketing his head and her pussy all over his face, but he’d all but begged her, saying there was nothing he wanted more.

They’d left the ladies’ bathroom and gone straight to his apartment. He’d undressed her and while he’d been focused on the clasp of her dress right at the base of her neck, she’d managed to disassemble his old Captain America suit. She’d had the belt in the floor and the pants shoved down just past his ass by the time he’d pulled the dress over her head.

After he’d taken his time running his hands all over her body and washing away the evidence of their furtive coupling in the public bathroom, he’d urged her to sit on his shoulders so he could eat her out. She’d been all red-faced and fumbling when he’d slipped both her legs over those wide shoulders, but the embarrassment was long gone. Now, she was arching her back and pressing her pussy into his face just like he’d asked. She was close; she could feel it in the way her body was shaking and the tight press of her thighs against his ears. “Let go,” he told her before slipping his tongue between her lips and swiping it right up until he hit her clit.

“Steve,” she said with a gasp.

“Let go,” he urged her again.

“Oh, fuck…” Darcy groaned and bucked her hips up to press her pussy right against his face as she came hard. Every muscle of her body was strung tight as he eased her down from it with gentle licks. When she went boneless, he slipped her legs off his shoulders and steadied her with a hand on her waist as he stood up.

He chuckled softly at her little squeak of surprise when he bent down and shoved his shoulder into her stomach so he could throw her into a fireman’s carry. Turning off the water, he carefully stepped on the mat just outside his shower.

“Your ass is…. Wow, Steve. You ever thought about being a butt model?” Darcy grabbed handfuls of both his cheeks as she hung upside down over his shoulder.

Steve was smiling when he let her slide back down to her feet. “Is there such a thing?” he asked, grabbing a fluffy towel off the bar on the shower door and hastily drying her. His cock was hard again and her mouth was practically watering.

“Sure. Butt models, butt doubles for actors who don’t want to drop trou in front of a camera... You could be an underwear model for, like, extra cash. What does saving the world pay, anyway?”

“Not much,” he told her as he quickly moved the towel over his body. By the time he’d finished, she had his dick fisted in her hand and she was stroking him. “Fuck, Darcy. You’re gonna kill me.”

She moved to kneel in front of him, but he caught her arm and pulled her back up. “Come on, Steve,” she said with a pout.

“I got other plans.”

“Later,” she told him dismissively, kneeling in the floor at his feet. _Later_. Her response echoed in her head as she sucked on his dick, her cheeks hollowed out and her eyes looking up at his face.

He carded his fingers in her wet hair so he could see her face as she sucked his dick. Later. He’d accepted her promise. Did that mean they were going to spend the night together?

She could feel him hit the back of her throat as she tried to suppress the gag reflex. She was mostly successful. The way he was holding her head and looking down at her like he was going to turn her inside out before the night was through made Darcy’s body hum was desire.

It didn’t take long before his legs were shaking and she was moaning around his shaft. Her chin was covered in her own saliva. This wasn’t her. She didn’t beg to suck guys off, but there was something about looking up at Steve Rogers with his pupils blown and his face all blissed out, those lips parted in pleasure. Sucking him was the only foreplay she needed to get sloppy wet for him.

His hips bucked forward just the tiniest bit, but it was enough to let her know he was close. She hummed around his shaft, one hand working the base of his cock. Her other hand was spread over his stomach. She curled her fingers in and dragged her nails down his abdomen. Steve let out a wordless cry as his cock pulsed. She swallowed on instinct as he came in her mouth, his hands like a vice on her head. It wasn’t painful, though. In fact, it only served to turn her on even more.

Like some wanton, sex-crazy maniac, she licked every inch of his cock clean before she pulled back and looked up at him. Steve looked wrecked as he grabbed her arm and hauled her up to stand in front of him. “You don’t play fair,” he said.

Darcy just grinned. “It’s a little-known fact that I’m super competitive. I used to flip the Monopoly board when I was a kid if I thought my chances were shot and my brother was going to win.”

He just shook his head and threw her over his shoulder again. The way the muscles of his ass moved as he walked really was a sight to behold. He looked like one of those gorgeous marble statues come to life. Like Michelangelo’s David, except with a way better package. Nah, she thought, with a way better _everything_. She felt giddy and high off him being back from the past, high over him still wanting her this way. Over the way it felt to wake up to him that morning before he left and how dreamy and toe-curling it was to feel his body against hers in the weak light right before dawn.

It felt like she’d have that again. Her mind reeled as she thought about spending the night with him, of him touching her freely like there was nothing to hide. Like there was more to them than just great sex.

Her throat tightened at that thought. Darcy knew she needed to be careful because the more she spent time with him, the more she liked him. _Him_ , not just his fantastic body. And he was Captain America with a chip on his shoulder and a dangerous profession of putting himself in the line of fire every time shit went down. He was out of her league and heartache waiting to happen. For now, though, she was limp in his hands as he sat her down on his leather couch. Her slightly damp skin stuck to the material as she clamored to right herself and cover her naked body.

Steve wasn’t having any of it, though. He tossed a blanket on the cushions in front of him and sat down on it before pulling her into his lap. She struggled as she tried to get into a position that wouldn’t allow him to see every inch of her from head to toes, but Steve wasn’t very accommodating and he had the strength advantage.

“Are you cold?” he murmured, settling her ass on one of his thighs and letting her legs stretch out over the other and then down toward the middle of the couch. He braced her back with his right arm and settled his left over her thighs to keep her place.

She laughed and said, “No, I’m just trying to not be on display.”

“You don’t like when I look at your body?” His lips brushed over her ear when he asked the question.

“Uh, sitting sideways on your lap is not exactly the most flattering—”

“If you keep wiggling, you’re going to make me hard again,” he said, cutting her off. “And you’re gorgeous, perfect.” The arm clamped over her thigh lifted so he could run his hand from her knee, up her leg, over her stomach, eventually stopping to cup one of her breasts.

“You’re crazy,” she told him.

“Mmm,” he said noncommittally, nuzzling his face into her neck and hair. She stopped struggling and he eventually pulled her closer and let his head fall back to rest on the couch cushion behind him. Darcy listened to him sigh as she relaxed and sank into him, enjoying the feel of his naked body beneath her.

“You’re warm,” she whispered.

“Serum,” he told her without lifting his head.

“What were you like before the serum?”

“You ain’t seen the pictures?”

“I’m not asking what you looked like. I’m asking if it changed you.”

The arm at her back shifted and he gently tugged a strand of her wet hair. “It changed the way people treat me.”

“I bet you were bossing people around and breaking hearts even back then.”

“I think I only broke one heart and that was after the serum.”

Darcy laid her head on one of his shoulders and curled her arm up to drape over the other. “Peggy Carter? One of the founders of SHIELD?”

“Yeah,” he agreed.

“What happened?”

“I crashed my plane in the ocean before we could go on our first official date.”

“Didn’t she die a couple years ago? I remember reading an article about her accomplishments.”

Steve sighed. “Yeah, she did.”

“Did you look her up when you thawed out?”

“Yeah. It was… strange. Kinda awkward.” When Darcy didn’t speak up, Steve continued with, “I mean, she lived a full life without me. Got married, had kids, grandkids, built up SHIELD. She never needed me even though she said I broke her heart.” His head was still tilted back.

Darcy nuzzled her nose into the smooth skin of his neck. “I bet she compared every man she met to you. You’re pretty hard to forget.” It was out of her mouth before she’d really considered exactly what she meant by it. What if it was the same for her? What if she compared every man to him? They’d all fall short.

“I don’t know about that, sweetheart,” he whispered, lifting his head up and pressing a kiss to her wet hair.

They sat on the couch with her cradled on his lap for several minutes in silence. Darcy closed her eyes and tried to let go and just be in that moment, smelling the soap on his skin.

“I lost someone else when Thanos... Someone I didn’t tell you about.” His voice was soft when it broke the stillness of the room.

Darcy squeezed his shoulder. “You wanna tell me?”

“If you wanna hear.”

“Of course I want to hear, Steve.”

She opened her eyes and saw the flex of his throat in the dim light of his living room as he swallowed. “How’s your history?”

“Fair. Are you going to ask me if I know who James Barnes is?”

Steve exhaled a breath that spoke of disbelief and amusement. The arm behind her back moved again and she felt that teasing pull on a tendril of her long hair. “You’ve known all along?”

She lifted her head off his shoulder and looked him in the eye. There were a scant few inches between them and the warm glow from the only lamp in the room made it feel intimate. “I heard the news stories. Thor said something to Jane about him disappearing after he broke free from HYDRA. I mean, it was all over the news, but they didn’t say that he defected or whatever. That was just Thor gossiping about your business.”

Steve smiled. “I don’t mind.”

“I don’t know what happened to him after the debacle with the Accords, but I assumed if he’s not here and you’re not looking for him, that must mean you know where he is or isn’t. And you telling me that you lost someone that you didn’t want to talk about before… Well, I kinda put two and two together since every history book and documentary ever says that you two were thick as thieves. Am I right?”

“Yeah, sweetheart, you’re right. He got the bombing in Vienna pinned on him—”

“You know, they didn’t publicise it much that the real bomber was Helmut Zemo. That pissed me off. I was a poli-sci major and a news junkie, so I saw that Zemo was tried and convicted last year. The major news outlets kinda dropped the ball and left the blame hanging on Barnes like it was just an afterthought or whatever.”

Steve’s brows furrowed as he looked at her with a grin lifting the corners of his mouth. “Where did you come from?”

Darcy smiled back. “What do you mean?”

“How’d the smartest girl in the building end up naked in my lap?”

This made her laugh. “I don’t know about smartest. Like I said, I’m a news junkie. Other people are scrolling through their Facebook feed and I’m scanning headlines from different news outlets. What happened with… Bucky? Isn’t that what you called him? Am I allowed to call him that?”

“Yeah, you can call him Bucky. He’d tell you to call him whatever you wanted, actually. He had a thing for pretty girls.” Steve looked melancholy—happy, but still missing his friend.

“Was he… a casualty of the incident?”

“Mmm,” Steve hummed his agreement. “I, uh, found him in Bucharest after Vienna. He was the one who helped me make sense of what happened. I mean, the Accords were already underway—that had nothing to do with him, really. But, the bombing… Well, that was Zemo trying to use Bucky’s past as the Winter Soldier to… to pit Tony and me against each other.”

“I heard it through the grapevine that it worked.”

Steve’s hand moved up her thigh and then back down, absently touching her skin. It was at once comforting and electrifying. “It did,” he admitted.

“Wrecked an airport in Germany and then went on the run. Steven Grant Rogers, I do declare,” she teased him.

He chuckled and moved his hand up and down her leg again. She wasn’t even sure he was aware of what he was doing. “Yeah, actually, once we—Bucky and I—started to put the pieces together, we realized that HYDRA might have other programmed soldiers in a base in Siberia. We went there to stop whoever had set the bomb off in Vienna. It was all just a lure to get us there, to get Tony there. Zemo had killed the soldiers while they were still in cryo and rigged a television to play the security footage of…” Steve stopped and sighed.

Darcy slipped the hand on his shoulder around to the back of his neck and squeezed, trying to give him the support he seemed to need.

“The footage of Bucky killing Howard and Maria Stark.”

Darcy winced. “So that was for sure? I mean, there were conspiracy theories, but…”

“Yeah, it happened. Bucky was… he wasn’t in control at the time. He was—HYDRA had…”

Darcy squeezed his neck again. “It’s okay. You don’t have to defend him to me.”

Steve sighed. “I just want people to know who he really is. He wasn’t a traitor and he wasn’t weak. He fell from that train and I left him behind. They experimented on him and tortured him. He’s a survivor. Everything he did for HYDRA—that wasn't him. It was them using him. They just, they wiped out his personality and make him a machine. What happened in D.C. a few years ago…”

“Oh, that political shitstorm? I know what you’re talking about.”

“Well, he saved me. I almost died and he pulled me from the water and disappeared. I didn’t find him again until the bombing in Vienna put a target on this back. He was trying to stay off the radar. He just wanted his life back.” Steve shook his head. Darcy wanted to tilt her chin up and kiss his lips to provide comfort, but she wasn’t sure that it would help or that it was the right time.

“Everything fell apart in Siberia. Tony saw the footage and tried to kill Bucky. I… I couldn’t let that happen. It wasn’t his fault.” He said the last sentence like he was reliving that moment and was pleading with Tony.

Darcy moved her hand from the back of his neck to his smooth cheek. “Hey, you don’t have to convince me. I believe you. So, you and Bucky go at it with Tony. You win, right?”

“Nobody won. T’Challa agreed to let Bucky stay in Wakanda. Actually, T’Challa’s sister fixed him up. She designed a new arm for him and cleared all that shit out of his brain. I don’t know how I could ever repay her. She gave him peace for a little while.”

“He actually lived in Wakanda?”

Steve nodded.

“Wow. They’re pretty much isolationists. They don’t really tolerate outside influences.” She gave him a wry smile. “Honestly, can’t say I blame them much. I mean the governments of the world are just grasping at straws most of the time, playing politics. Wakanda probably doesn’t want us to come in and fuck things up there like we've done everywhere else.”

Steve smiled back. There was warmth in it, but no humor. “He raised goats.” Steve did laugh this time. “ _Goats_. I saw him two or three times over the past couple of years. He was doing good. Real good.”

“Did he fight with you in Wakanda when the Outriders came?”

“Yeah.”

“And the snap?”

“Yeah,” Steve agreed again. “Right after it happened he called my name out. I looked over and he just… fell apart right in front of me.” He sighed. “Gone.”

“I’m sorry, Steve. I’m sorry he’s gone.”

“Ain’t your fault, sweetheart.”

“Same thing happened to Jane,” she told him. “She was there in front of me and then just… It looked like she turned into ashes and blew away.”

“I wish I could take it all back,” Steve whispered. “None of them deserved it.”

“It’s not your fault either, Steve.” She lifted her chin up and pressed her lips to his. Steve’s hand tightened on her thigh as he deepened the kiss, parting her lips with his tongue.

“I don’t deserve you,” he whispered when they both pulled back for a breath, their foreheads pressed together.

“Well, I am pretty awesome. Smartest girl in the building, according to some.”

He chuckled softly. “Well known fact.”

“Another well-known fact is that, despite some occasional confusing bullshit, you actually make me pretty happy.” Her heart was in her throat as she made the confession.

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out but his breath. “I—”

“It’s okay,” she said. “No pressure. I get that the situation is fucked up and this can’t be… like, for real.”

Steve’s hand on her back moved to cup the base of her skull so he could position her to accept the kisses he pressed to her forehead and cheeks and ultimately her mouth again. “This _is_ for real to me, Darcy.”

“I guess I mean, like, an official relationship.” She cringed at the way she sounded like such a weak little girl trying to label it or pin it down. She’d never really had that urge before with guys, but she’d never met a guy like Steve Rogers before either.

“You think they all don’t already know that we’re seeing either other?”

Darcy raised her brows. “Is that what we’re doing? Seeing each other?”

“Hell, Darcy, I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doing or what I’m supposed to do. I just… want you to stay here with me tonight.”

“And tomorrow night?”

“That too.”

She shifted on his lap and felt the beginnings of an erection against the back of her thigh. “You know, that’s good enough for me. It’s more than I thought you wanted to give me.”

“Oh, sweetheart, I wanna give you more than tomorrow night. Just don’t know if I’m capable,” he whispered in her ear as she moved to straddle his lap. He helped with hands on her waist to steady her and lifted his butt to slide down and give her the narrowest part of his hips to sit astride. The confession warmed Darcy’s stomach and chest and she thought over what exactly he meant and how Steve Rogers was whispering these sweet nothings to her of all people.

“Nice to know you want to. Didn’t your mom ever tell you it's the thought that matters?” she said, rocking forward to rub herself against the underside of his shaft as it hardened, stuck between their bodies.

Steve smiled up at her. “Part of me is glad going back didn’t change things much. Makes me feel selfish as hell, but I’m glad I know you. Glad I’m here with you.”

She maintained a straight face when she glanced down at her boobs, shifted her gaze back to him, and said, “Is it because of my awesome rack?”

He let loose a bark of laughter before saying, “No, but they definitely help.” With that said he tightened his hold on her waist and leaned forward to cover one nipple with his hot mouth. She gasped as he swirled his tongue in a circle before sucking. She raked her nails through his hair, scratching his scalp lightly as he switched to her other breast.

“That feels so good,” she whispered. Steve placed a lingering kiss in the valley between her breasts and looked up at her with adoration in his eyes. It took her breath away to see that expression on his face because there was no denying it and no mistaking it for lust or desire. He actually _cared_. “I’m glad I’m here with you, too, you know,” Darcy told him.

“I want to fix this. I want them all back, but I don’t want to lose this in the process,” he said.

Darcy nodded, eyes wide and heart in her throat.

“But I need you to know that if I can change it by going back, then I… then I have to change it. Even if it means we don’t happen.”

Darcy blinked to make the tears dissipate so they didn’t roll down her cheeks. “I know.”

“I need you to know that if it happens it has nothing to do with you or how I feel about you,” he added.

“I know.”

“I won’t want to, but I’ll have to.”

She nodded and tilted her head back in an effort to stall the stupid waterworks. “I know, Steve,” she said to the ceiling.

“I hope I don’t have to, sweetheart. God, I hope I don’t have to.” His hand on the back of her head forced her to look down at him. He tilted his head back and kissed her softly at first and then harder, a desperate edge creeping into the press of lips. Suddenly, the tenderness of the moment had slipped into desperation and desire as his hands pulled her closer and roamed over her exposed skin. She arched her back while Steve licked at her nipples and hummed his approval when she reached between him to stroke his cock. He was fully hard within seconds, ready to go and like steel beneath the velvet-soft of his skin.

His muscles moved under her left hand as she pressed it to his chiseled check. “I want you inside me,” Darcy whispered after he pulled back from a deep kiss that involved her tongue in his mouth.

“Put me where you want me, Darcy,” he whispered back, pressing his forehead to hers.

She shifted her ass onto her heels and positioned the head of his cock right there against the entrance. Keeping a grip on the base of his shaft, she shifted her weight forward and felt him penetrate her inch by inch. She was soaking wet from all he’d done that night so sinking down on his length was an easy thing.

“Ahh,” Steve said on a soft exhale, “you feel so perfect around me, sweetheart. So fuckin’ perfect.”

Darcy rocked back on her heels and then forward to press her tits against his chest. When she got close enough, Steve tilted his head back and kissed her, biting her lower lip. When she rocked back again, her lip stretched and then snapped out from between his teeth. “I’ve never felt this way during sex,” she admitted, her scattered thoughts spilling over her lips without censor. “Never ever. God, Steve, you make me feel so full. I can’t even think.”

“Yeah?” he asked as he slid his hands around to cup her ass and rock her a bit more forcefully. “You like taking me like this?”

She gave him a giddy laugh. “I like taking you any way I can get you.”

“I’m yours. Use me, sweetheart. I’m all yours.”

She gripped his shoulders and rode him hard, flexing the muscles in her thighs and abdomen to chase after the friction that made her toes curl and his head fall backward to reveal the masculine line of his neck. Steve helped her balance with his hands and tore gasps of pleasure from her when he lifted his hips to enter her completely, no inch of him not wrapped inside her heat.

“Keep doing that,” she told him. “I’m so close, Steve. So, so, so close. _Please_.”

He took her mouth with his and moved a hand so he could work her clit with the pad of his thumb. The unexpected friction took her unaware. Darcy felt the climax well up low in her abdomen and wash out over her entire body.

“Fuck, Darcy,” Steve grunted, taking over because she wasn’t capable of moving now that she was caught up in her pleasure. She felt his fingers biting into the flesh of her hips as he thrust up into her very willing body. She looked down at his face at the very moment he came for her, eyes half-shuttered and lips parted as a grunt from deep in his throat coincided with the jerk of his cock inside her. “Oh, fuck,” he growled, shuddering as he gave little tiny thrusts upward, coming inside her pussy. She loved the feeling of him marking her with his cum, partly because she knew he liked it.

When the tension from his muscles eased and he collapsed back against the couch, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed herself against him in a hug. Steve’s arms immediately went around her body and held her close. “Why is it so good with you?” she whispered into his ear.

He gave her a disbelieving, breathless laugh. “I was going to ask the same thing about you.” After a long moment, he moved a hand down to lightly smack her ass. “Come on, let’s go to bed. I need to let you sleep for a few hours, right?”

“Maybe,” Darcy replied. “Depends on what you wanna do instead.”

“Don’t tempt me,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since I started writing in the MCU fandom last April, I’ve met lots of wonderful people who have taken the time to send messages, leave comments, and just be supportive of my writing. Over the past few months, I was thinking of how I could say thank you. I’ve seen a few giveaways on Tumblr to celebrate milestones, and I thought it might be a nice way to thank everyone. I don’t have a particular milestone I’m celebrating except to say that the positive response when I post a fic is pleasantly overwhelming sometimes.
> 
> So, I went on Etsy and picked a few pieces of Marvel-related jewelry to give away. I tried to buy from individual fans and from people in various areas of the globe (US, Canada, UK, Brazil, Ukraine, Mexico). There are eight pieces, each costing between $13 and $28 USD. All of the pieces are awesome in their own way. I have my favs and I was tempted to keep a couple for myself, but that’s not why I bought them. I am a (moderately good) knitter, so I’m also offering to handknit two custom hats (your choice on the pattern, color, and material). If you end up with one of these in the giveaway, I’ll chat with you via email to figure out what you’re looking for. The jewelry will be mailed as soon as the giveaway survey is closed. I hope to have the hats done and mailed before the holidays at year-end.
> 
> I don’t want to make this difficult or require you to jump through a bunch of hoops (i.e. follow me here and do this there and blah blah). So, if you want to enter, you should click on the link below. You’ll be asked to give your name, email, and preferences on which giveaway item(s) you’d like. I’ll also ask you which of my fics you enjoyed the most and what you liked about it. This is my way of weeding out people who happen to see this and don’t read my stuff. Also, I’d love to hear what you have to say, especially if you’re a reader who doesn’t comment.
> 
> Links to all the jewelry (and the Etsy shops I purchased the pieces from) can be found in the survey that is linked below. It will be open through October 15th. I’ll close it on that day and randomly pick ten people to receive a gift. If you are chosen, I will try my best to give you something you said you wanted. If I can’t, then I’ll randomly assign you something. I’ll be in touch with the lucky winners after October 15th to get a mailing address. Feel free to reblog if you’d like, but that isn’t necessary.
> 
> Thank you for being nice to this writer. She appreciates you all. <3
> 
>  
> 
> [CLICK HERE TO TAKE THE SURVEY AND ENTER](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.surveymonkey.com%2Fr%2F7NM83ZT&t=ZGUzOTAzNTBhZDhhMDhhNDNiMzBhOGRiZDdhMjU0YzdlMzg5ZmY5Nyx2c2xlSVZ3Zw%3D%3D&b=t%3AFY6WbgkMAR4SY-XSjGmiaA&p=https%3A%2F%2Fanogete.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F178429616022%2Freader-appreciation-giveaway&m=1)


	13. Chapter 13

> _”I’ll battle ‘til this bitter finale, just me, my dignity, and this guitar c_ _ase.” - Amy Winehouse (Some Unholy War)_

“He’s going to get himself killed!” Bruce said, pacing the floor.

Steve dropped into one of the black chairs around the conference table and sighed. The morning had started out better than any morning in recent memory. He’d woken to Darcy’s mouth on his dick and things had just gotten better when they'd moved to the shower. He’d walked her to her door before taking the stairs down to the lab where he found an irritated Bruce Banner and a confused Scott Lang. Thor had left to find Thanos’ location after Bruce had theorized that Pym’s technology might allow them to get into one or more of the Stones and blow it up from the inside out. It was a longshot and just a theory, but Thor had taken to it and left in a multi-colored flash probably around the same time that Darcy had roused Steve with her hot mouth on him and her ass up in the air.

They had made their way to the conference room to find Nat and Clint and give them the news. Tony had just made an appearance with a cup of coffee in each hand. “They’re both for me,” he told everyone before stopping when he felt the tension in the room. “What happened now?” Tony asked, his face falling.

“Thor’s taken off to find Thanos. Bruce and Scott think it might be possible to enter the Stones and blow them up from the inside.” Nat’s voice was dry. She managed to keep her cool more than anyone Steve knew.

“No, we’re going back again,” Tony said. “We’re going to back to change things. We just need to figure out how to keep the Tesseract from him.”

“Tony, I think that’s a losing battle,” Nat said.

“We can do better,” Clint replied. “Hiding it where no one knows how to find it didn’t work. Maybe we need to think about how to destroy it then,” Clint said.

“We don’t even know how to destroy it now,” Bruce replied.

“We’re trying to get these people back,” Clint snapped. Nat reached over and laid a hand on his shoulder.

“We’re going back,” Tony replied. “We need to find a way to mask it from him or destroy it _before_ he kills everyone.”

“I don’t know how we could find that kind of power,” Scott said, looking at Bruce. Bruce just shook his head.

Nat looked at Steve, raising her brows. He also shook his head, having nothing to add. Half of his mind was still in bed with Darcy in his arms and the other half was sick with guilt. He’d told her last night that he might have to take action and work toward a world in which they’d never met, but the reality of actually trying to engineer the future in such a way was crushing. It was no question, though. If he could save all those people, then he had no choice. She’d be just fine like Peggy had been just fine. In fact, she’d be better off without him.

Tony was pulling up some schematic, the blue lines cutting through the air above the table, while Bruce argued that the impact of a nuclear explosion within such a confined space would be unpredictable and potentially dangerous. “We’d have to take the Stone to a secluded area, away from population centers.”

“We can’t even touch the Stones. What makes you think we could enter one?” Nat asked.

Steve closed his eyes and listened to the debate which bordered on an argument. So much of him wanted to give up and accept it and just _be happy_ with the woman he’d woken up with that morning. He’d sacrificed his future with Peggy for the good of the world. Wasn’t once enough? Rubbing his eyes with his thumb and index finger, Steve knew the answer to that was a resounding no. He’d never forgive himself if he didn’t do what he could to make things right, even if that meant losing her.

Voices were raised again until a light knock on the open door made everyone stop. Steve opened his eyes and looked over to see who had interrupted. Darcy stood there with Nebula just behind her. His pleasure at seeing her twisted into pain when he realized the bliss he’d found with her last night couldn’t last.

“Uh, Nebula overheard the debate and has something to tell everyone,” Darcy said.

Tony threw his arm in the air in a flippant welcome. “By all means, murderbot.”

“Don’t be a dick,” Darcy snapped at him.

Tony sat down heavily in one of the chairs and looked up at her. “We’re trying to solve problems here. What does she know and why didn’t she share it before now?”

“Because she didn’t know it mattered,” Darcy told him, stepping into the room and narrowing her eyes at Tony. “Look, I know you’re upset, but that doesn’t mean you can be an asshole.”

Nat snorted and Tony looked down at his lap. “Fine. What?” he mumbled, mollified by Darcy’s response.

“She overheard Bruce and Scott talking about being able to enter one of the Stones,” Darcy told everyone, her eyes eventually landing on Steve. He felt his stomach lurch as he remembered the way she’d laughed this morning as he‘d pulled her up against his body after she’d made him come in her mouth. He wished he could be alone with her again, not necessarily to have sex but to just be able to touch her, to hear her giggle in his ear as his hands found that tender, ticklish spot just beneath her ribs.

“Let’s hear it,” Clint said, leaning forward and resting his arms on the table.

Nebula stepped into the room, a scowl on her face. Steve had been amazed at Darcy’s ability to get on the woman’s good side, but he no longer questioned it. Darcy let the people around her exist without pressure or judgment. She accepted people, flaws and all, though, he’d learned the hard way that her understanding disposition only went so far. She was no pushover or doormat. It was a fine line to walk, and she did it was such grace.

“Tell us.” It was Natasha speaking up, looking at Nebula with a respect that Tony and Clint hadn’t given her. Steve understood where the two of them were coming from. Nebula had been no help since arriving and had sneered and snarled her way through the four months they’d been treading water, trying to fix what had happened. They’d lost the women they loved and—in Clint’s case—even children.

Nebula looked at Darcy who nodded her encouragement. “The Soul Stone contains the lives of those who are killed by whoever possesses it.”

“Come again?” Bruce asked, stepping around Tony’s chair and approaching Nebula.

“My sister and I spent many years searching for the Stones, separately. She wanted to keep them from our father.”

“Obviously, that didn’t work out,” Tony said as he slumped down in the chair.

“We were working alone, against each other. Our father is manipulative. He made us believe we could not trust each other.” Her voice was hard, bitter. “She looked to hide them. I looked for the Stones so I could destroy him with them.”

“Well, guess we know who _not_ to give them to,” Scott said from behind Nebula. When she turned around and shot him a dirty look, he paled and held his hands up in surrender.

Darcy stepped up to the table, her hands resting on the top of it directly across from Steve. He lifted his gaze from her fingers to her arms, her shoulders, and finally her familiar face. What Nebula was saying seemed far-fetched and ridiculous, but Darcy seemed anxious about the story. “She said years ago she found someone who had knowledge of the Soul Stone. He told her that it could hold souls. What if it is holding all of them? What if they are all stuck inside of it and have been since the incident?” Darcy asked the question directly to Steve, her eyes locked on his.

He swallowed and said, “Okay. How do we get them out?”

Darcy pursed her lips together and glanced over at Nebula. The other woman shrugged. Looking back at Steve with wide eyes, Darcy said, “Well, we didn’t think that far yet. Figured we’d submit our theory to the board of brainiacs and master strategists to see if it held water.” She leaned forward and whispered, “See? Not the smartest woman in the building.”

He couldn’t help but smile up at her. “Sure, you are, sweetheart.”

“Hey, lovebirds! Break it up. You’re making me sick,” Tony snapped. He turned his gaze to Nebula. “So where is this informant who told you the Soul Stone can hold… souls?”

“He’s dead.”

“Great,” Clint muttered. “Why should it be easy?”

“Does he have any friends who might have the four-one-one on this thing?” Tony asked.

“No. I tortured him until he gave me all of the information he had,” she replied.

“Dude!” Darcy said, looking over at her new friend with a shocked expression.

Nebula shrugged. “I put him out of his misery afterward. I couldn’t let my father find him. The less he knows, the better. He already knows too much.”

“You _killed_ the informant?” Darcy asked.

“He didn’t know where the Stone was and I couldn’t let my father find him. You seem surprised. We’re not playing games; these are high stakes.”

Darcy shook her head. “I’m halfway taking back my defense of you. You _are_ a murderbot.”

“It sounds like a cute little Pokemon when you say it,” Tony quipped, leaning back in his chair.

* * *

Darcy took the seat across from him and mostly kept her mouth closed as they all argued over whether Nebula’s information was reliable and actionable. Steve had his reservations, but there was that little voice in the back of his mind that wanted it to be true. If the dead were trapped within the Soul Stone, then they weren’t gone. If they were trapped, then undoing the past wasn’t necessary or even advisable as long as they could locate the Stone and find a way to get them out. That was the problem. How to get them out.

He looked up and saw at a flustered Bruce. Clint had asked him a point-blank question about whether blowing up the Soul Stone would release potential prisoners of it. “I don’t know,” Bruce told everyone. “This is all theoretical. I can’t… this isn’t my call. They could all die.”

Steve sighed. There were so many ifs and no real plan. Clearing his throat he said, “We need to find him first. Making these plans is useless if we can’t get to the Soul Stone.”

“Maybe Thor will come through,” Nat said. “He’s looking.”

“Yeah, as long as he doesn’t do anything stupid like try to take on Thanos alone and get himself killed,” Clint replied.

“Rocket and I will search. He’s nearly done with the ship,” Nebula said from her spot on the wall behind Darcy’s chair.

“Why are you helping?” Tony asked.

“Because my sister is in that Stone,” Nebula barked back before pushing off the wall and walking out of the room.

Darcy closed her eyes and exhaled a breath of frustration. “So,” she said, looking at everyone now that the room had gone silent. “Thor, Rocket, and Nebula are going to find the asshole. Scott is working on getting inside the Stone. Bruce and Tony are figuring out how to destroy the Stone without killing the people who are inside.”

“Who _might_ be inside,” Bruce interjected.

“Right,” she agreed. “Teamwork. Yay?”

“Yay,” Clint said in a deadpan voice.

The group disbursed a few minutes later, leaving Darcy and Steve sitting across the table from one another. She flashed him closed-mouth, nervous smile and said, “Soooooo, I’m still trying to figure out how to casually say hi to the guy I just had really hot sex with this morning.”

Steve tried to suppress his smile, but couldn’t seem to hold it back. “I think you just say it, Darcy.”

“Oh. Of course,” she replied. “Hi, guy who gave me two orgasms before I managed to put on a pair of panties.”

Steve stood up and walked around the table so he could lean his ass against the edge of the table next to her. Crossing his arms, he looked down at Darcy’s upturned face. “Hi, Darcy,” he murmured in a soft voice.

“Hi, Steve,” she whispered back. “Sorry I busted into your little party here, but I thought Nebula had need-to-know information.”

He nodded. “It’s okay, sweetheart. I’m glad you did. If the stars aline, maybe we can make this happen.”

“That’d be really nice because I get the sense that the alternative is going back in time. And every time you do that, there’s a good chance we’ll not know each other when you get back.”

Steve closed his eyes and said, “I think we found out that I’d know you, but you wouldn’t know me.”

“So, then you’ve gotta find me.”

He opened his eyes and looked down at her earnest expression. “Find you?”

“Yes! If it happens, then you need to find me and do me so we can do this all again.”

“Just like that?” Steve asked with a smile. “Just… do you?”

“Uh, yeah.”

He raised his brows. “What if you don’t want me to do you?”

This comment she found especially funny. Steve waited for her to stop laughing with a smirk on his face. “Dude, I will definitely want you to do me. Look at you. You’re, like, wow. Just _wow_. And if you have the beard in the future… fuck, yeah.”

“I didn’t shave this morning because of you.”

“Because I made you late with the shenanigans in the shower?”

Steve tilted his head to the side. “Because you like the beard.”

“I like _you_ , beard or not.” She cringed, her shoulders lifting up to her ears and a painful expression on her face. “Ugh, am I being too clingy? I mean, I know we’re not putting a label on this or whatever, but—”

“Would you go out to dinner with me?” Steve asked, cutting her off. She was adorable when she rambled, those words just flying out of her mouth rapid fire.

She stopped and said, “Dinner? Wait, like a date or like two pals going to dinner?”

“Pals don’t sleep together.”

Darcy snorted. “Sure they do. It’s the twenty-first century, Steve.”

“Do _you_ sleep with your pals?”

“No. I only sleep with moody, hundred-year-old men with super strength and a penchant for saving the world.” The sass that came out of her. It made him want to grab her and kiss her mouth.

Steve restrained himself and said, “You didn’t answer my question.”

She laughed. “You didn’t need to ask. Of course, I’ll go out to dinner with you.”

* * *

He wanted to take her to somewhere nice, but neither one of them had the clothes for anything nicer than fast food. Even if he did, Steve couldn’t exactly dress up and show his face around New York City. He’d shaved his beard and cut his hair to look like the Captain America everyone knew. He didn’t want to get Darcy wrapped up in some confrontation with a disgruntled citizen who wanted to know exactly why the Avengers didn’t save a wife or son or whatever.

They ended up tucked away in a corner booth at a pizza place three blocks away. He’d put on a pair of fake glasses with thick, black rims, a black baseball cap, and a hoodie. With fall descending, he wasn’t too out of place. Darcy had on a pair of faded jeans and a hoodie that was a couple sizes too big for her. He didn’t need to see to remember all those perfect curves and all the flawless skin just underneath the thick fabric.

Right after they’d sat down beside each other, he’d lifted his arm to rest on the back of the seat. Darcy had taken the opportunity to slide right up next to him and into the cradle of his armpit. It still made Steve smile as he absently ran his fingers over her shoulder while they waited for their food.

“Sorry this isn’t as nice as I’d like it to be,” he murmured.

Darcy tilted her head back and smiled up at him. “It’s perfect, Steve. Really. Honestly, it’s the happiest I’ve been in months.”

Her comment made his chest feel warm. “Me, too,” he whispered in her ear.

“Do you think it will work?” Her smile had faded and her eyes looked serious now.

He didn’t have to ask what she was talking about. He knew. “There are a lot of variables, Darcy. We’ve gotta find him. We need to get access to the Stone. Nebula has to be right about the people who were killed by him. And we need to find a way to get them out. It all has to go right.”

“If it doesn’t, then back to the drawing board, I guess,” she replied with a sigh. “Back to changing the past.”

“Yeah,” he said, feeling that ache in his chest.

Her hand patted his thigh. “I was serious about finding me. Like, if it comes to that and you have to go back to change things. If you remember this and I don’t… I want you to find me and explain it to me.”

“Darcy,” Steve said softly. “It won’t have ever happened. You’d be better off without me.”

“I don’t want to be without you.” She lifted her right hand and covered her mouth. It was like she hadn’t meant for that confession to slip out. Regardless, it still made Steve’s stomach swoop like he was on a rollercoaster.

He squeezed her shoulder and pressed a kiss to her temple. “You think you’d believe me?”

“Uh, sure. You’re super trustworthy… and hot. Trust me, you would _not_ have any problem convincing me that I should go out with you or sleep with you.”

“I don’t think we’ve done a lot of sleeping.”

She elbowed him and laughed softly. “You know what I mean. Potential future me… or potential present me will thank you. God, that’s so confusing.”

The man at the counter brought their pizza over and sat it on the table along with a couple of paper plates. Darcy’s stomach growled at the smell, making Steve laugh. He put two slices on a plate and set it down in front of her. “Eat, sweetheart.”

“Are you not agreeing to find me because you don’t… because you think this was a mistake?” She looked over at him. “I don’t want a pity—”

“Darcy,” Steve said, interrupting. “If it plays out that way, then I’ll find you.”

“And?”

He smiled and ducked his head down to press his lips to her ear. “And tell you that I was an asshole who didn’t even take you to dinner before I fucked you.”

“I’d be like, ‘Dinner? Who needs dinner?’” She turned her head and brushed her mouth over his, sending a shot of desire through his bloodstream.

Chuckling, he leaned back and said, “You do. Now, eat.”

She looked from him to the pizza. “Okay, but only if I get to come home with you.”

“That was never in question. You’re sleeping in my bed tonight.”

Steve watched as she folded and bit into the first slice, moaning her approval. He dug in right after and together they finished off the pizza before walking hand-in-hand back to Stark Tower. The sun had already set and the streets were dark. He used the retina scanner beside the loading dock to get them in the back door and his fingerprint to call the service elevator.

Less than two months ago, he’d been standing right in that spot waiting for the elevator when he’d heard her raised voice from the lobby. Less than two months ago, he’d felt hopeless and numb, useless and pathetic. He still had that guilt, but there was direction and purpose now. Steve wasn’t ready to say that it would all play out the way they intended, but for the first time since Bucky had disintegrated right in front of his eyes, he was ready to try and make it right. He wondered if that drive had originated with Darcy and his feelings toward her.

Steve wasn’t sure what he felt for Darcy Lewis, but he knew it was strong. There was that little voice in the back of his head that told him he was just afraid to put a label on it, that he knew damn well what he felt for her. He tried to imagine stepping into the elevator and ignoring her pleas to the security guards back on that late summer day. He shook his head as he rejected the very thought. No fucking way. And if fixing the present didn’t work, forcing him to go back and fix the past, then he’d most definitely be looking for Darcy Lewis once it had all shaken out. Those thoughts of keeping her safe by keeping his distance seemed incomprehensible. He couldn’t be without her.

Yeah, he knew what this feeling was, but he couldn’t call it that. He’d known her for less than two months. He felt like he was out of his mind, like he was on a rollercoaster, but he’d never felt anything better or more right than taking her hand and pulling her into the elevator.

“I was right here that day I heard you yelling at the security guards,” he confessed as they watched the doors close. “I almost got into the elevator and went upstairs, but your voice just… I couldn’t _not_ go out there and try to help.”

She grabbed onto his arm and laid her head against his bicep. The easy way she touched him made Steve’s heart melt right inside his chest. He pressed the button for his floor as she said, “I was pretty sure you thought I was kinda annoying when I first came here, like for the first few days.”

“Until I got you drunk and had sex with you against the wall in the stairwell?” he asked, his cheeks turning a bit red at the memory and how out-of-character doing something like that was for him.

Darcy laughed. “Actually, I thought you might think I was even more annoying after that. You avoided me.”

“I was scared of you.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanted you so much.”

Squeezing his arm, she said, “You’re unhinged, Steve.”

He opened his mouth to respond, but what he wanted to say might scare her. It was too much, too soon. “I’m crazy for you,” he said instead.

The door slid open to reveal an empty hallway. They walked down to his door together and slipped inside his dark apartment. He wanted to peel her clothes off and touch her soft skin, but he also just wanted to _be_ with her. They’d done so much of the physical intimacy that the relationship felt skewed, off balance.

“Do you want to watch a movie?” she asked. It was like she’d read his mind.

Steve felt that drop in his stomach like he was in freefall. “Yeah, let’s watch it in bed.”

“I have the hookup. Rocket gave me the key to Tony’s media collection,” Darcy told him. The way she let go of his arm felt reluctant. He watched her pull the hoodie over her head and walk toward his bedroom. He did the same, not even bothering to turn on the lights.

Steve found her in the bathroom, looking at his sink. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?” he said, leaning against the doorframe.

“I should have brought my toothbrush.”

Relief flooded through him that her furrowed brow had nothing to do with second-guessing and everything to do with something so inconsequential. “Use mine.”

“Steve,” she admonished him.

He laughed. “What? Darcy, I’ve had my tongue in your mouth. Actually, I’ve had my tongue all over your body.”

She looked at him in the mirror. “You have a good point there.”

He stepped up behind her and swept her hair over her shoulder so he could kiss her neck while she quickly brushed her teeth. He took the toothbrush from her and did the same, mentioning that she should bring some of her things up to his room while his mouth was still full of toothpaste.

“You asking me to move in?” she teased, standing in the doorway.

“If you want to,” he said after rinsing his mouth.

“Do you want me to?” Her face was serious now.

Steve thought for a moment about how to answer her question, how to answer without putting pressure on her to do one thing or another. Finally, he discarded the games and just said, “Yeah, I do.”

“You move fast, Steve.” She was smiling, so she must at least like the idea.

“Learned my lesson. I’m taking what I want,” he said, turning her around and walking her into his bedroom with his hands on her hips.

She laughed and crawled right into the middle of his bed after kicking off her shoes. Steve watched her unbutton and shimmy out of her jeans while he tossed his shirt,, shoes, and pants into the floor. “What do you want to watch?” she asked when he climbed onto the mattress.

“Something fun,” he replied, settling in and propping himself up right beside her with his back against the headboard.


	14. Chapter 14

> _“Cut you in half, see how you feel without. I want you to live, but you don’t know how. Am I gone? I want to be reborn. Thought it was love. Tell me, was I wrong?” - Martina Topley-Bird (Ilya)_

Darcy woke to Steve’s hard body curled up behind her and his morning wood nestled in the curve of her ass. His breathing was slow and even and the light from outside was gray. The sun wasn’t up yet, but it was probably going to be a rainy day. She wanted to stay in bed with the man behind her and forget all those responsibilities that weighed him down.

They’d fallen asleep during her second movie pick of the night. As much as her body buzzed with desire each time he was in the room with her, Darcy couldn’t think of a better end to their first date than falling asleep in the cradle created by his shoulder while they watched a mindless comedy from her teenage years. The sex was amazing—the best she’d ever had—but it gave her butterflies to know it was more than just physical despite how it had started.

That didn’t mean it couldn’t get physical, though. She smiled as she shifted her hips. It only took a couple of insistent pushes back into his groin to rouse Steve. His hand slipped down to grab her hip at the same moment he pressed a kiss to her neck. “Hey,” he whispered.

“Morning,” she said.

“You trying to start something?” he asked in that husky, sleepy voice.

“Maaaaaybe,” Darcy said, dragging out the word.

She looked down to see his hand move beneath the sheet, sliding off her hip and over her stomach. Darcy gasped as he moved it down the front of her panties and let his middle finger slide between the lips of her pussy. “I can tease, too,” Steve whispered.

Her laugh turned into a gasp when he pushed two fingers into her. “Steeeeeve.”

“You like that?” he asked, placing a kiss on the shell of her ear and then on her temple.

“Mmm,” she agreed, rocking back and forth between his hand and his cock.

Steve pulled his hand out of her panties and brought his fingers up to his mouth. “Take ‘em off, sweetheart,” he told her.

In the most ungraceful, yet eager, way, Darcy reached down and pushed her panties off. Her shirt went next so she was naked beneath the thin sheet. You didn’t need a blanket when you had the furnace known as Steve Rogers against you. By the time she was rolling onto her back, he was naked, too. He put an insistent hand on her hip, pushing her onto her side again, facing away from him.

His open-mouthed kisses on her neck were making her wetter than she’d ever been between her legs. He’d barely touched her there this morning, so she blamed the wetness not just on his kisses but her very explicit memories of Steve’s prowess in the bedroom. Darcy turned her head, straining to look behind her. She got what she wanted when he kissed her mouth and buried his hand between her legs again. Just when she thought he would rub her or work her with his fingers, he skimmed right on down to part her thighs and pull her top leg back as he bent it at the knee. She let him, hooking her ankle over his thigh and leaning her upper body away from him to open herself up.

“Please, please, please,” she chanted, pushing her ass back into his crotch. He shifted and settled his cock right against her slit.

“You gonna beg me for it, sweetheart?” His voice was rough and deep and sexy as it vibrated through her ear and down into her core.

“Yes,” she said, feeling delirious. “Please, Steve. Pleeeeeease.”

“God, that gets me so fucking hard,” he replied. “You sound so sweet.”

“Oh, god… I love when you talk like that.”

“Yeah?” he whispered, his lips pressed to her ear.

“Uh huh.”

Steve shifted again and moved down a fraction of an inch so he could enter her from behind. She could feel the pressure and the stretch in her pussy as he came at her from that angle. “How does that feel?”

“So good, so _big_ , so....” she said, feeling like she was babbling and incoherent.

He pulled out and pushed back in. “Feels like you were made for me.” Steve moved his hand back to cup her mound from the front, his fingers spreading on either side of her slit. She grabbed his forearm with one hand, digging her nails into his skin, and put the other hand on top of his between her legs. She could feel his cock sliding through the V of her index and middle fingers as they laid over his. “Fuck, Darcy, you drive me crazy.”

“Steve!” She gasped his name when he shifted his hand and started rubbing her clit.

“Want you to come for me, sweetheart. Come all over my cock.” He sounded winded, breathless.

His voice right next to her ear was pushing her closer to release just like his fingers and cock were. If she gave him any sign that she liked something, Steve Rogers was ready to latch on and exploit it, to use it to control her pleasure. Every gasp at the touch of his hand or the snap of his hips, even her admission she loved when he talked dirty—all of it was in his arsenal now.

“I want you to walk out of here with my cum inside you,” he growled before dragging his teeth over the soft skin of her neck.

“Oh, fuck… yes,” Darcy said, feeling that wave of pleasure crest. She rocked her hips back and forth between his unyielding hand and cock until she was unable to see or hear or feel anything but the wave of euphoria as she came.

When she opened her eyes, he was grunting as he rutted into her. “Ah!” Steve cried out when he came, his smooth, unfaltering thrusts becoming jerky and uneven.

Darcy smiled and closed her eyes again when she felt his lips on her neck and shoulder. “I think I’m addicted to you,” she admitted.

He laughed softly before saying, “I know what you mean, sweetheart.”

* * *

Darcy had gone out to find a bakery that was open so she could buy a peach pie for Steve. He’d admitted it was his favorite, but he hadn’t had a slice in years. By the time she left it on his kitchen counter and took the stairs to the lab, all hell had broken loose. Everyone was standing around a table arguing about something.

“Thor!” Darcy said when she saw his blond hair and massive shoulders over the heads of Bruce and Nat.

“Darcy,” he replied, coming over to wrap an arm around her. “Are you well?”

“I’m good. You’re back so soon. I was worried about you.”

“This is my brother,” Thor said, sweeping his arm out to reveal a tall man with long black hair and a sharp face. He was in dark green and black leather and looked more dangerous than anyone she’d ever met.

“Uh, hi.”

He smiled and gave a flourishing bow. “A pleasure,” Loki said.

“He’s not homicidal anymore, right?” Darcy asked Thor.

“No. No, no, he’s helped us locate Thanos.” Thor smiled at Darcy and then turned a stern look at his brother. “ _Right_ , brother?”

Loki raised his brows. “Of course, _brother_. I must say it is a treat to finally make your acquaintance, Darcy. My brother has had so many lovely things to say about you.”

Loki moved forward with a hand outstretched, but he stopped cold when Steve moved to Darcy’s side. “That’s close enough,” Steve told him.

“Ah, these old grudges are tiresome, Captain Rogers.”

“He thinks you’re hitting on his girlfriend,” Tony said from behind Loki.

“He’s dangerous,” Steve protested.

At the very same moment, Thor looked at Steve and said, “What?”

“He’s dangerous,” Steve said again.

“Are you courting Darcy?” Thor asked.

Loki sighed and rolled his eyes. “While this little schoolroom drama is quite interesting, we have more serious matters to attend to. Oh, you know, like all of my loyal subjects in danger because there is a madman with the Stones out there in—”

“ _Our_ people, Loki,” Thor said before he looked back at Darcy and said, “Do you love him?”

“What?” she asked, eyes wide and her voice sounding like a croak.

“Do you love Steve Rogers?”

“Okay, okay,” Nat said, stepping over and grabbing Thor’s arm. “Let’s leave the two of them alone.”

Clint was grinning like the cat that swallowed the canary as he held his hand out to Bruce. After he had Bruce’s cash in his fist, he narrowed his eyes at Loki. “You know,” Clint said, “it’s pretty ballsy of you to come in here and talk about a madman with a Stone threatening people.”

Before Loki could reply, Darcy said, “Did you _bet_ on me?”

“Well, technically, we bet on Steve,” Bruce replied, his cheeks coloring at being caught.

Steve walked over and took the cash from Clint’s hand. Darcy watched him stride back over to where she stood beside Thor and offer her the folded hundred dollar bill. “Thank you, Steve,” she said, tucking it away in her bra. “What was the bet?” Her question was directed at Clint.

“How long before he’d make his move. Bruce thought he’d be honorable and stay away from you.”

Tony snorted at the exact moment Steve said, “Can we please focus? Where is Thanos?” When everyone’s attention turned to Loki, Steve reached out and grabbed her hand. He flashed her a quick smile and squeezed her fingers in his before letting go. The reassurance made her feel giddy and warm even in the face of what was being said.

What was being said was that Loki was a little shit who had somehow managed to slap a tracker on one of the Black Order’s ships. He’d been following it for months and had contacted Thor only a couple days before to tell him that the ship had visited a strange area of the galaxy—a planet with a small population and no natural resources other than crops, which were of little use to what was left of the Black Order. Thor went to investigate with his newfound, built-in rainbow bridge, teleportation, mumbo-jumbo. Darcy’s mind started going sideways when she tried to imagine how he could just zip off into the galaxy like that.

“He’s there and unprotected,” Thor told everyone.

Darcy saw Nebula standing in the doorway, a strange expression on her face. “Does he still have the Stones?” Tony asked. “He’s not unprotected if he has them.”

“The Power Stone is on an amulet around his neck,” Loki said.

“And the others?” Steve asked.

“He must have them, but perhaps not on him,” Thor replied.

“Well, fuck,” Tony muttered.

While Tony continued talking, Darcy walked over to stand near the doorway. “Hey,” she whispered to Nebula. “You okay?”

“Where is he?” she asked Darcy, her voice nothing more than a hiss.

“I don’t know. Far away, probably.” She paused and added, “You can’t do this on your own.”

“I’ll avenge my sister,” Nebula said. “I’ll make him pay for everything he put me through, put _us_ through.”

Darcy gave her a tight smile that spoke more of pain than humor. “They’re going to help you whether you want it or not. You should let them. I mean, how can this guy stand up to you and all of them, right?”

Nebula narrowed her eyes. “Perhaps.”

“Hey, assholes!” Darcy jumped and looked down to see Rocket stroll around Nebula’s legs and walk right past her to enter the room. The raised voices and arguments halted for a moment.

“What’s that?” Loki asked.

“If anyone says the R-word, I’ll—”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Your name starts with R. Sure you want to go that route?”

“Fuck you, Stark. I’m here to tell everyone that I have my ticket off this rock.”

“You finished?” Bruce asked, his eyes wide. “Could we take a look at the mechanics of—”

“Hey, keep your paws off my baby,” Rocket snapped. “I’m accepting passengers for a fee. Bombshell gets to ride for free.” He glanced over at his shoulder and nodded at Darcy. She just shook her head and smiled at him. “Suit yourself. I ain’t coming back,” he told her.

“We’re commandeering your ship to go pay Thanos a visit,” Steve said.

Darcy’s stomach dropped when she realized that this argument wasn’t going to end any way other than Steve leaving to fight the guy who had almost unlimited power at his fingertips. It made her sick thinking of losing him when she’d just got him.

“Yeah? You found him?” Rocket’s eyes gleamed and suddenly he didn’t look like a grouchy raccoon, but a dangerous, rabid animal. “Where?”

“Yes, where?” Nebula chimed in. She looked even more dangerous than Rocket.

Thor opened his mouth, but Loki elbowed him in the ribs at the same moment Steve held up his hand. “What?” Thor asked.

Tony smirked. “They’ll take off without us if you tell them where he’s at. Keep your mouth shut.”

“You need our help,” Nat told Nebula, holding the other woman’s gaze. “If you want to stop him then you need us.”

Nebula’s lips thinned out as two long seconds ticked by. “Fine,” she relented.

Darcy leaned back against the wall as talk turned to explosives. She wondered at how strange it was to see Tony and Rocket bond over blowing things up.

* * *

It felt like a suicide mission. It felt like they were all going to leave and never come back. It felt like she was going to be left all alone in the building with nothing and no one. Her family was gone, her old friends, and now all her new friends. Steve. She was going to lose Steve. Darcy tried to focus on pulling in breath after breath, but they were coming faster, so shallow with the way her throat tightened up as she listened to them make plans.

“Darcy. Darcy,” Nat said, waving her hand in the air.

Darcy stood up from the chair along the wall, eyes wide as she shifted her gaze from Steve’s back to Nat. “What?”

Clint looked almost as ill as she did when he said, “I need you to stay with Lila.”

“Are all of you going?” she asked in a shell-shocked voice. It was a stupid question. Of course, they were. If they wanted to win, they needed every advantage they could get. It was just overwhelming to be confronted with the reality of it.

“We’re all going,” Nat said.

“What if it doesn’t work?” She swung her gazed back to Steve. “What if you die?”

His eyes were sad. For a long moment, he held her gaze and then he dropped his head and closed his eyes. She felt like there was a vise tightening around her heart.

“She could go back and stop us.” Everyone looked over at Scott. “Right?” he asked. “With the same devices we rigged to send you guys back. Couldn’t she come back to this moment and tell us to do it differently?”

“How is she going to know?” Tony asked.

“Well, we’ll just have to decide on a time limit,” Nat said.

“And if we kill him, but cannot return?” Nebula asked.

“I’m not—I don’t want to lose you,” Darcy said, her eyes on Steve. He looked up at her and all she saw was the weight of his responsibility and grief. It made her gut twist. “I don’t want to lose any of you.”

Clint put his hands on the table. “I thought we were doing this to save everyone we lost. That’s how she’ll know if we won.”

Scott nodded. “Yes, if they come back.”

“But what if you all don’t come back?” she asked.

Clint’s eyes were fierce when he looked right at her and said, “If they come back, then we won. You don’t go back. You don’t change this.”

“But what if you all don’t come back?” she said. Her voice was trembling and Steve wouldn’t look at her anymore. “What if—”

“Darcy,” Nat said, taking a couple steps toward her.

“Darcy, if we reverse this, you can’t do anything to change that,” Tony said, pushing past Nat to stand in front of her. “No matter what.”

She turned her back and pressed her hands into her stomach, doubling over. “Fuck, I don’t want to do this.”

“Promise,” Tony demanded.

She straightened and pulled in a shuddering breath. “How long am I supposed to wait?”

Everyone looked at Rocket. “I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t know where we’re going. Remember how none of you trust me?”

“Three months,” Steve said.

“No. No,” Darcy told him. “That’s too long.”

“It’ll take us time to get there.”

“Not three months!”

Bruce was scribbling on a piece of paper with Thor and Loki standing over his back. Loki pointed to something on the sheet. Finally, Bruce cleared his voice and said, “How fast can the ship go?”

“Not fast. We’re taking it to the nearest planet that isn’t a shithole so we can get one that hauls ass,” Rocket replied.

Nebula walked over to stand beside Darcy and put a heavy hand on her shoulder. “I’ll do what I can to get him back to you,” the woman said softly.

It was the straw that broke her. Darcy could handle stress and pain and grief, but she couldn’t handle it when someone—especially someone who barely knew her—showed tenderness and concern. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she doubled over again. “Just fucking tell them where he is so I don’t have to wait months not knowing,” she said.

Nebula’s hand was still on her shoulder. “We won’t leave without you,” she told everyone in her usual dry delivery.

Thor sighed and told Rocket and Nebula where Thanos was hiding. Rocket crawled up onto the table where Bruce was scribbling and snatched the pencil away. He made some changes to the calculations and said, “Two weeks, assuming we can get a better ride once we’re in civilization again. I hope you all have credits because it’ll cost us.”

Loki’s grin was predatory as he said, “I’ll take care of that.”

“What? Are you loaded or something?” Rocket asked him.

“No, I’m just very good at getting what I want,” Loki replied.

* * *

“Do you have to go right now? So soon?” Darcy asked Steve as they entered his apartment. He left the lights off and pulled her into an embrace. She closed her eyes and tried to commit the way his arms felt around her to memory.

“Yes,” he whispered into her hair.

“I’m scared,” she admitted.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart. This shouldn’t be on your shoulders.”

“This is on you, Steve. Not me.”

He pulled back and held her shoulders in his hands. “We’re asking you to wait here. We’re asking you to go back and stop us if this doesn’t work. Darcy, that’s… that’s harder than anything I’m doing.”

Something that was half-sob, half-laugh came out of her throat. “I don’t know about that, Steve.”

“Waiting is the hardest thing,” he said.

“I don’t want to lose you.” Darcy grabbed onto his wrists, breaking the way he was stiff-arming her, holding her away from his body.

Steve gave in and let her wrap her arms around him again. “I don’t want to lose you, either, Darcy. If this doesn’t work, you have the ability to take it all back. I know you can convince us to rethink things if we can’t bring them back.”

“I’m worried about them coming back, but not you,” she said, face pressed into his hard chest.

“I’m gonna give it all that I got to come back to you. I promise you that.” He leaned away and took her face in his hands. “I promise, okay?”

“Okay,” she said right before he kissed her.

“Would you stay here in my place for me? Until I get back?”

She nodded and pushed up on her tiptoes to kiss him again. “Darcy, if I don’t come back, but the others do—Jane and the others—I want you to look for Bucky. Okay?”

“No, you’re coming back,” she insisted, tears falling down her cheeks again.

Steve wiped the salty tears away with his thumbs. “He’ll look out for you if I can’t. You tell him who are you are to me and he’ll look out for you.”

“I want _you_ to look out for me.”

He laughed, but it just sounded broken and tired. “Only if I can’t, okay?”

“I don’t even know who I am to you,” she said.

Steve picked her up with hands on her ass so she could wrap her legs around his waist. “How can you say that?” he asked, walking them into the darkness of his bedroom. The curtains were pulled and just a thin line of weak light from the cloud-covered sky was peeking through. As he laid her down on the bed and came along with her, he said, “You’re my girl.”

Darcy opened her mouth, but only a sob came out. She was _his girl_. His lips scattered kisses on her eyelids and cheeks and neck. Fisting her hands in his shirt, she whispered, “Can we before you leave?”

He smiled down at her and nodded, removing her clothing one piece at a time before he removed his and settled between her thighs. “Hey,” he said, “it’ll be okay, sweetheart.”

“I won’t be happy until you’re back, you jerk.” Darcy gasped at the end of her sentence when he reached down to line himself up and thrust inside her. Suddenly, she was full of him and surrounded by him.

“Who are you callin’ a jerk?” he asked before kissing her, taking her mouth just like he was taking her body.

Darcy clung to him, grasping his shoulders and arms as he moved on top of her. She could barely breathe from the sensation and her anxiety over him leaving. “God, Steve, please. Don’t stop.”

He bent his head down to kiss up her neck and over her jawline. “I’m so close, Darcy. You feel so good, so perfect.” So smoothly she didn’t even feel his rhythm stutter, Steve reached down and started rubbing her clit with his middle finger. “Come for me, sweetheart. Wanna feel you.”

She did exactly what he asked of her because she was incapable of denying him. After he came, Steve let himself collapse on top of her for a brief moment. His weight wasn’t uncomfortable. In fact, Darcy wrapped her arms around her body to hold him close. Her heart was beating, but it felt like just barely because he was minutes from leaving her. They were already getting Rocket’s spaceship up and running.

“I love you.” His words were as light as a breath and whispered right into her ear.

Darcy felt her heart climb into her throat as she said, “I love you back. Please come home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're interested in the songs from my personal playlist that I listened to while writing this fic, you can find it in the link below. If you're not able to view the link to the YouTube playlist, I can send you a complete list of the songs. Just let me know. Thank you to everyone for the wonderful feedback!
> 
>  
> 
> [THEIR HEARTS SAID YOUTUBE PLAYLIST](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2o_A-FR3X3BD069zlOI8xyxscjJDG_QJ)


	15. Chapter 15

> _“I’ve been sleepwalking, been wondering all night, trying to take what’s lost and broke and make it right. I’ve been sleepwalking too close to the fire, but it’s the only place that I can hold you tight.” - Cam (Burning House)_

“Look, we get it, Purple People Eater. You didn’t think this through. I mean, we’re offering you the chance to take that back.” Tony held his hands out at his sides and was displaying his usual swagger, but Steve knew he was just as tense as anyone else standing there in the clearing. “And if you don’t want to take it back, then we’ll do it for you. People are dead and more people are dying.”

Tony had spent the last two minutes trying to reason with a silent and impassive Thanos, telling him the truth about half the crops and livestock going with the people themselves. During the trip to this planet on the outskirts of a galaxy far away from the only one Steve had known, they’d decided Tony would be the best one to confront Thanos and keep him talking. Thanos had the Power Stone on the amulet, and even if he hadn’t, he was still a formidable opponent. They needed to keep him distracted for as long as possible to allow Scott, Nat, Clint, and Rocket time to get into the cottage and find the Soul Stone. Steve was hoping Thor’s intel was right and it was stashed away inside and not on Thanos. If he had it, then it was going to be hell to get it from him without killing him first. Steve had no problem killing the bastard, but after the last altercation, he wasn’t sure how easy that would be.

He stood back at the ready only a few feet behind Tony, listening to the other man run his mouth. It was a god-given talent. Steve had never met someone quite as flippant and witty with his words as Tony Stark. It used to annoy him, but since their falling out a couple years ago, Steve had come to appreciate Tony’s sense of humor and all those feelings the man hid behind the words. Steve did the opposite. He hid his feelings behind a wall of silence. They were two sides of the same coin, so when Thanos took a step toward Tony, Steve move forward to stand beside his friend.

Thor was right there, too, his ax gripped tightly in his hand. Just behind him was his brother. Steve and Clint had been outvoted in regards to Loki. They had wanted to leave him behind, but Thor would hear none of it and everyone else had sided with him. Steve knew people could change, but it didn’t happen very often, and Loki still seemed to be unreliable and dangerous. He might have Thor’s back, but would he have anyone else’s? Bruce was a couple yards behind Steve and he was still very much human and very much shaking in his boots. According to Bruce, the Hulk had been tucked away, unwilling to come out lately. Steve suspected if push came to shove, he’d be forced to it in order to save Bruce’s life, but that didn’t mean they expected Bruce to run full tilt at Thanos with all he had.

The comm was quiet. No chatter from the others. He wondered if they’d located the Stone, if they’d found a way inside. He tried to keep his eyes on Thanos and not shoot glimpses over at the cottage to see if he could make out movement inside. Anything that would tip their hand could make this plan come crashing down on them.

Nebula had peeled off the group shortly after exiting the spacecraft. When Steve noticed, he had voiced concern that she might be working for Thanos. Rocket had laughed at the idea. “No,” he’d said, “Nebula is all about the patricide. She’s more of a stab-you-in-the-back killer than a walk-up-and-do-it-to-your-face person, though.”

It rankled Steve that she’d broken formation and that the team he’d worked so hard to put together wasn’t actually together. He’d take Sam Wilson and Wanda over Loki and Nebula any day, but this is all he had to work with. At least he could depend on Tony and Thor to do their best to help him hold Thanos off.

“What’s done is done, Stark,” Thanos said, towering over them. He waved his hand in the air dismissively. “Go back to your little home and be thankful of the mercy I’ve given.”

“Mercy? Mercy? You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Tony said, rolling his eyes.

“Your vision is—”

“I had Lasik surgery, so my vision is twenty, twenty, numbnuts,” Tony said, cutting Thanos off. “You should have hired a therapist to work through these homicidal tendencies instead of trying to dress them up like you’re the good guy, sacrificing and saving the universe.”

“Tony,” Bruce warned. They were here to distract him long enough to destroy the Soul Stone. Not piss him off as quickly as possible. Steve was itching for a fight, too, but he understood why Bruce was trying to rein in Tony.

“You’re nothing but a self-centered piece of shit.” Tony spit out the words, waving his own hand dismissively in the air.

“Ah, come on, Tony,” Bruce said, louder now. “Can we not piss him off before we fight him?”

“Where is your alter ego, Dr. Banner? Afraid to face me?” Thanos taunted as he moved to place his hands on his hips. It was at that moment Steve saw the sleeve of the tunic he wore lift to reveal a golden band around his wrist. A brilliant green stone was set in the middle of the band.

Steve closed his eyes for a moment. He could feel the energy behind him change as Bruce took a back seat to The Other Guy. Talking was a thing of the past now, and Thanos had two Stones on him—the Power Stone and another on his wrist. He looked over at Thor, but Thor had not seen the glint of it. Loki smiled in the corner of Steve’s vision. It looked feral and dangerous. “Time,” he told Steve, confirming which Stone it was at the very same moment that Hulk roared and charged forward.

Steve had time to think they were completely fucked if Thanos could just reverse time and undo any damage they were able to inflict. They still needed to try, though. Tony was off and up in the air. Hulk had already launched himself over the yards of grass between them to smash Thanos in the face with a massive fist. Thor roared as he raised his weapon and ran into battle. Loki had drawn two long knives from out of nowhere, but he didn’t step forward. All Steve could do was hope Thor was right and his brother wouldn’t betray them.

Thanos smacked Hulk to the side and turned to the side to avoid a blast from Tony’s suit. Thor swung his ax and nearly embedded it in Thanos’s stomach before the larger man brought his arm down and grabbed the handle, twisting it and Thor end over end into the grass. Steve’s feet had already started moving. As fast as everything felt, sometimes in the heat of battle it felt like it was all slow motion to him. He slid between the giant’s feet, using his shield to knock an ankle back and bring Thanos to one knee. A thud made Steve look up to see one of Loki’s knives buried deep into Thanos’ shoulder.

Thanos laughed and pulled it out, discarding it and moving to get up. Tony directed another blast to the ground at his feet which made him fall forward so Hulk could jump on his back. Steve tried to jump in and grab for the Power stone on the amulet or the Time Stone on the bracelet, but he couldn’t get past the rolling bodies of the two massive creatures. Finally, Thanos was able to throw Hulk off of him and across the clearing. Thor immediately took his place and swung his ax. When Thanos jumped back to avoid getting hit, Steve pushed him forward. The result was a deep red slash in a diagonal line across his chest and down to his stomach. It had to have hurt, but it wasn’t enough to kill him or even slow him down.

Backed into a proverbial corner, Thanos let out an angry scream as he took another hit from Tony. He reached up and wrapped a fist around Tony’s ankle, smashing Tony into the ground. Steve lunged forward and jumped onto Thanos’ back, blindly grabbing for the chain of the amulet hanging from his neck. Just as he found purchase and felt the links of the chain on his fingertips, a hand bigger than his head came around and grabbed Steve around the neck, throwing him onto the ground next to Tony, who was already climbing to his feet again. Thor charged forward between them and brought his ax down, missing his the market by no more than an inch. The blade sliced through the air and went so deep into the ground only the handle was visible.

Thanos turned to the right and brought his hand down on Thor’s back. Steve watched in horror as Thor crumpled to the ground and Thanos raised his hand again for a second blow. It never fell because Tony discharged a blast of power from his glove that knocked Thanos back on his heels. Suddenly, there was a knife sticking out of the purple Titan’s throat as a rivulet of dark red blood trickled down to his collarbone. Steve rolled onto his side and pushed himself to his feet and Loki threw another knife before producing a long, curved sword from thin air.

Before Loki could even attempt to use the sword, Hulk came barreling in from the left and tackled Thanos. They rolled away to grapple for control and Steve followed them, trying to find a way into the fight so he could grab one of the Stones. The Time Stone would be the most difficult to remove, but it was also the most dangerous to them. He kneeled on Thanos’ arm as Hulk pinned the Titan’s body. “Tony!” Steve yelled, exposing the golden cuff and the Time Stone to his friend.

Within the blink of an eye, Tony had extended his arm and shot a potent blast right into the cuff. The reverberating waves of energy as the Stone absorbed the power and kicked it back out knocked Steve and Hulk off of Thanos and sent Tony flying backward to skid across the green meadow.

Thanos pushed himself to his feet before Steve had gained his. He reached up to bring a fist down on Steve but had to stumble back to avoid Loki’s sharp blade. Thor groaned as he stood and wrapped his fingers around the handle of his ax. Tony and the Hulk were shaking their heads and pushing themselves up. It was one of those moments when it felt like time stopped for just a moment. It was a breath of reprieve before the fight began again.

A thick arm of purple flesh swept out and knocked Loki back, but the damage of his sword was done. There was a wet line of red on the arm of the beige tunic. Thor roared again as he came at Thanos with his weapon held high. The blade bit deep into the Titan’s already wounded arm. Steve wanted to tell them that the arm they were damaging was the wrong one. They needed to get the cuff off his right wrist.

Thanos cried out in anger and pain as he backhanded Thor and ripped the ax out of his flesh. He threw it at a quickly approaching Hulk, hitting him in the side with the blade. Hulk screamed and dropped to the ground as Steve launched himself up again, catching the punch that Thanos had thrown at him and swinging himself up to aim a kick right at the shoulder wound. He felt a blow to his head and thick fingers wrapped around his neck, cutting off his air. The pulse of energy sent from Tony’s glove was enough to break Thanos’s hold, and Steve fell to the ground at the madman’s feet.

Thanos lunged forward and managed to grasp Tony's arm, throwing him across the field, but not before Tony was able to blast the cuff again. Steve looked up at the smoking piece of metal, the hold on Thanos’s wrist tenuous. Just as he reached up to grab it, a blast sounded in the distance. It sounded like it came from miles away, but the cottage behind them shook with what seemed like an aftershock before it blew apart.

Thanos whirled around, eyes wide and disbelieving. “No,” he said to no one at all. “It can't be.”

He lifted his right wrist and winced as he touched the Time Stone with his left hand. It pulsed brightly and Steve felt despair akin to what he'd felt when the reality of Bucky's death—of all of the deaths—had hit him months ago in Wakanda.

“No!” Steve said, reaching up in a futile attempt to stop what was about to happen, to stop Thanos from doing exactly what Darcy had postulated he'd done: cheat.

A lithe figure launched over his head and landed on Thanos’s wide shoulders. Steve looked up just in time to see Nebula shove a knife deep into the hollow of the massive purple throat. Thanos choked as he tried to draw breath. He moved to lift that right arm again. Steve pushed himself up and grabbed for the cuff. His fingertips knocked the clasp loose, but Thanos caught it before it could fall to the ground.

“The Stone!” Steve screamed, hoping someone could reach it. Nebula had a gray square she was pressing against Thanos’s head. Her attention was not on the Stone, but on revenge. She sneered down at Thanos and said, “This is for me… for _her_.”

The Time Stone shined brightly as Thanos closed his eyes. Steve prepared himself for the inevitable rewind, though he knew he wouldn't remember all that had occurred.

Except it never happened. Instead, Thanos screamed in rage and frustration as the Time Stone zipped right out of his grasp like it was pulled away by a magnet. He had time to look up and see it smack into Loki’s palm right before Nebula dropped off Thanos and grabbed Steve by the collar. “Run,” she told him.

Steve stumbled to his feet and moved, letting his body's momentum carry him forward, throwing a hand up and waving Tony and Thor away. The blast at his back threw him several yards through the air and took the breath from his lungs when he finally hit the ground.

He stayed on the ground until it was clear the explosion was singular, and then he struggled to his feet. Loki stood just feet away with the cuff held in his hands. Steve felt his stomach drop when he realized Loki held such amazing power in his hands. The last time he'd had the Tesseract, things had turned out to be a mess.

“Brother,” Thor said, approaching Loki.

Loki rolled his eyes and said, “Can't we just keep it? It might be useful.”

“Loki,” Thor warned again.

“Oh, fine. Don't ever say I don't know how to share with the class.” Begrudgingly, Loki handed over the Stone.

“Mother said you always held onto things so tightly because you wanted to belong,” Thor said, clapping Loki on the back.

“Mother always said you tried to best me at combat because you're compensating for your small manhood.” Loki smirked, looking pleased with himself.

Steve didn't wait to hear Thor’s response because he was too focused on the carnage he'd found when he turned around. The ground was scorched where the fire from the blast had reached out in a circle. He could make out the tree-trunk-like legs still somehow attached to hips. What was supposed to be a torso was gone. Thanos’s shoulders and head were also long gone, though Steve could see a hand and right next to it the warm glow of the Power Stone, knocked free of its setting and lying innocuously on the grass a foot from the burned earth.

In a daze, he turned to see Tony kneeling over Bruce. Bruce, not Hulk. Bruce’s face was contorted in pain because Tony’s suit was trying to knit Bruce’s flesh back together where the ax had sliced into his side. Steve glanced in the other direction to see Nebula staring at the remains of her adoptive father. Her eyes were on the pieces of him, not the Power Stone lying naked on the ground.

“I’m too old for this,” Bruce said with a groan.

“Report?” Steve asked.

“We’ll live,” Tony replied. “Good job, murderbot.”

She scowled at him. “My father deserved much worse.”

“Family,” Thor said, shaking his head. “I am sorry for your loss.”

“It’s no loss,” she replied. “I hated him all my life. He was cruel and demanding and…”

“Pretty damn single-minded about killing half the universe,” Tony said when she trailed off.

“Yes,” she agreed. “I was a tool, never a daughter.”

Thor walked over to her and reached out a hand to touch her shoulder, but Nebula filched away, making him reconsider. “You will make your own family as we all have.”

Steve felt numb. Had they even accomplished anything other than killing Thanos? “What was the explosion in the house?” he asked everyone, turning back to the cottage. One of the walls had been blown out and lay in scattered pieces just like the madman who had lived inside. The ceiling had also collapsed.

“Was it Nat’s team?” Tony asked as he helped Bruce stand. They both limped over to where Steve stood. “Oh,” Tony whispered when he saw the Power Stone on the ground a few feet away.

“Don’t touch it,” Steve said. He looked over his shoulder to see Thor and Loki approaching. Thor held the cuff containing the Time Stone with care, not touching the jewel itself. Steve suspected Thor had the strength to hold it in his bare hands, but it would exact a toll and they couldn’t afford to have anyone off their game when they were galaxies away from home and didn’t know what was coming next.

“Stop your bitching, you little raccoon.” All eyes looked toward the cottage at the sound of Clint’s voice.

“I ain’t bitching. You broke my leg.”

“Shut up,” Nat said as she came around the corner of the house and locked eyes with Steve.

He didn’t know how to ask her if they’d succeeded. She and the others who were not that far behind could see Thanos’s remains on the ground, but the most important question was whether the theory about the Soul Stone had been true. Steve opened his mouth, but nothing came out except for air.

Clint was carrying Rocket like a baby with Scott not far behind, holding his ribs and limping. “Jesus,” Scott exclaimed when he saw the carnage on the ground. They were still half a football field away. Steve didn’t dare move from where he stood by the Power Stone. Nat had a box under her arm. It was wooden with intricate symbols carved into the sides.

“So?” Tony said, stepping toward the second group as they neared. “What happened?”

“It’s gone,” Nat said over the last few yards between them.

“Gone missing or gone blown up?”

“Gone blown up.”

“Ha!” Rocket exclaimed. “Look at this asshole here!” He was looking at Thanos’s legs lying on the ground. “My stuff is the best. Where’d you put it?” The question was directed at Nebula.

She shrugged. “On his head.”

“He gave you that explosive?” Tony asked.

“Who else could cook up something like that up?” Rocket asked, leaning forward in Clint’s arms.

“Did it work?” Steve asked, the question popping out of his mouth.

Nat finally reached his side and looked up at him. “I don’t know. They were… they were all there, but…”

“Who? What was it like?” Bruce asked, coming over. Within seconds, they were all standing in a loose circle, even Loki and Nebula.

Nat looked at Scott and Clint before turning her gaze back to Steve. “It was like a salt flat. Just...nothing in either direction but mountains in the distance.”

“People or… beings as far as you could see,” Scott said.

“Yeah,” Clint added. “The orange sky made all the people standing around like comatose vegetables even more creepy.”

“So, they were in there!” Bruce exclaimed.

Nat nodded. “There was an open structure—a raised platform with four columns and a roof. There was a… a little girl there. She was… awake.”

“A child?” Thor asked.

“She was… green. And her hair was—”

“Red,” Nebula said, looking anxious for the first time. “Her name is Gamora.”

“Yes,” Nat agreed. “I thought she was older.”

“She is. What happened?”

“She didn’t talk to us, just stepped off the dais and held out her arms like… like welcoming us.”

“Blah, blah, blah,” Rocket said, waving his arms. “So, we packed the damn thing with explosives and hauled ass.”

“We heard an explosion that sounded like it was miles away and then the Stone on the table blew apart and knocked out one of the cottage walls. It threw us all back,” Nat said.

Rocket smacked Clint on the chest with a paw. “This dick landed on my leg.”

“There are three Stones in this box,” Nat said. “We gathered them from the rubble in the house. Two of the—”

Thor held up the cuff, showing the Time Stone. Nat looked from it to the red Power Stone on the ground. “He had them on him,” Steve explained.

“So, we have them all, minus the Soul Stone.” Nat handed the box over to Steve. He accepted it with reluctance.

Steve closed his eyes and said, “What about the people inside?”

Scott shook his head. “Don’t know. Could have released them.”

“Scoop that Stone up and let’s go. We need to find some civilization to see if shit has hit the fan,” Rocket told all of them. Steve agreed. They needed to find a place with a larger population in order to determine if what they’d done had helped at all. If not…

_Darcy_ , he thought. If not, then Darcy would be going back to convince them not to go battle Thanos in a week. If it hadn’t worked, then they’d be going back in time, probably to get the Tesseract again and to try and change the course of events. He’d lose her, never even have had her at all. And if he was the one who went back to try to fix things—and he most assuredly would be—he’d remember it all. She’d remember nothing. As much as she’d told him if it came to that, she wanted him to search her out, Steve wasn’t sure it was a good idea. His life was dangerous and he had nothing to offer her beyond what he’d already given paired with worry while he was away on missions. She’d be better off with a man who could treat her better and be there for her. Like Peggy had been better off. For now, though, in this present life, he was okay being selfish because the damage was done and they were in love.

With Thor’s assistance, they managed to get the Stones in the wooden box Nat had commandeered and took off toward the area where Rocket had landed their spacecraft.

“Hold on,” Steve said, raising a hand as he looked out over the valley below. “Are there more trees? That forest down there didn’t seem so dense when we were descending.”

Clint paused as he caught up with Steve, shading his eyes from the sun as it descended. “Gotta admit, my mind wasn’t on the foliage when we were landing.” He clapped Steve on the shoulder. “Come on, let’s go. If Laura and the kids are back—”

“I think there _are_ more trees,” Nat said, putting her hands on her hips and looking around in all directions.

Steve shook his head, trying not to let his hopes rise too far without proof. They all started walking again, trailing behind Thor and Loki. Nebula, Tony, Bruce, and Scott were bringing up the rear. Rocket was sitting on Thor’s forearm, his broken leg supported by a split that Steve had fashioned from a few sticks and some twine found in the cottage. It would do until they could get to a planet with medical. Rocket said he knew just the place and it was on the way.

Steve crested the hill they’d been climbing and pulled up short when he noticed Thor and Loki had abruptly stopped right in front of him. “What the hell is that?” Rocket asked.

“It appears to be a tree,” Loki replied, his voice dry.

Stepping around them, Steve saw a tree not even an inch from the nose of the spacecraft. It had definitely not been there when they’d landed and the ship appeared to be exactly where they’d left it. His heart shot up into his throat. Could it be?

“Oh my god,” Bruce mumbled, pushing past Steve and Nat. “Does this—did it _work_? Did we save that tree?”

Nebula kept walking. “Move,” she told them all. “I need a ship to get to Vormir. If Gamora was returned, she would be there.”

“Yeah,” Rocket told Thor. “Move.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT NOTE: CHAPTER 15 WAS POSTED A FEW MINUTES AGO. YOU SHOULD GO BACK AND READ THAT BEFORE CONTINUING OR YOU WILL MISS WHAT TRANSPIRED WITH STEVE AND COMPANY ON THEIR MISSION TO DEFEAT THANOS.

> _“I told her, ‘No, no, no, you are too young.’ Her heart said, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, baby, I’m so strong.’” - St. Paul & the Broken Bones (Dixie Rothko)_

“Hello?”

“Is this… Darcy Lewis?”

She moved her cell phone to her other ear and sat up to kick the twisted sheets away from her body. It had been less than twenty-four hours since everything changed again. Mere hours since everyone who had disappeared had returned, right where they’d disappeared. It didn’t feel joyous; it felt like the world was falling apart all over again. It was mayhem. “Yes,” she said.

The man on the other end paused long enough that she though a bad connection had dropped the call. The communications networks, especially cell phones, were struggling to keep up with the overload of people who had lived through the disaster trying to find people who had returned.

“Hello?” she said again.

He cleared his throat and said, “Yeah, sorry. I’m… Do you know Steve Rogers?”

Her chest tightened at the mention of Steve. Logically, she knew it was too soon to tell if he’d survived. The fact that everyone who had been taken by Thanos was back was a good sign, but Darcy knew fighting Thanos was probably no walk in the park. Steve hadn’t minced words when he’d told her before he’d stepped on that spaceship that there was a good chance he might not come back from the mission. He’d made her promise not to fuck with that white box that would zip her back in time if they succeeded in saving half the universe. As much as Darcy shed tears of relief and happiness when she’d gotten through to her parents and brother, she still felt like there was a brick in her stomach when Steve crossed her mind. And he crossed her mind so frequently it made her a miserable, anxious mess.

It’s only been a day, she told herself. Give him two more weeks before you start losing hope. It had taken them two weeks and two days to give the universe back all the souls it had lost. It was hard to keep the faith, though. Faith took strength and Darcy didn’t know how much more she had left.

“Yeah,” she finally said. “I know Steve. Who is this?”

“Bucky,” he said. “I’m—”

“I know you who are,” she said, feeling like the breath had been taken from her lungs. “How did you find me?”

“Steve left your number for me. Look, I don’t know what’s happened, but M’Baku says it’s been five months. He says Steve and the others have gone to find Thanos. He said… that Steve told me to call you.”

“I don’t know where he is,” she told Bucky. Tears were gathering in her eyes as the anxiety she’d been living with since they’d left overwhelmed her. “I… I don’t know how to reach him or if he’s okay.”

“Tell me what happened,” he said.

Darcy opened and closed her mouth, unable to find a thread that would unravel the story. Where could she even begin? “So much happened,” she admitted.

“It’s okay, doll. Tell me.” His voice was tender, soft. She had difficulty reconciling what she knew of him with the man on the phone, but she couldn’t deny that he sounded like someone she could trust and someone she would like.

Inhaling a deep breath, she blew it out of her nose and said, “Well, you disappeared. Steve thought you were dead. Actually, we thought a lot of people were dead.”

“Do you know what happened in Wakanda?”

“You fought the Outriders before Thanos showed up. He... he had the Infinity Stones in a gauntlet. Tony said his goal was to kill half the universe because he thought it would solve overpopulation or some bullshit like that.”

Bucky chuckled softly but didn’t stop her.

Darcy continued with, “So, he, uh, snapped his fingers and… and… uh, half of everyone… I mean, half of everything living—like, plants and animals, too—just turned into dust. Steve said he was with you when you just… fell apart and got blown away by the wind. I was with my friend Jane when it happened. The same thing happened to her. I can’t find her now, though. Her phone isn’t working and I don’t know where she is. I don’t… I’m…”

“Hey,” he said softly, “it’s okay. We’ll help you. Tell me what happened next.”

“Well, I know Thor. Have you met him?”

“No. Steve told me about him. Feels like it was just a day ago that this happened, but M’Baku tells us that it was almost five months ago. Right?”

Darcy swung her legs off the bed so she could sit on the edge of the mattress. “Right. Tony had tried to stop Thanos by hitching a ride on this big spaceship and…” She paused and said, “You know Tony is okay, right? Like, he’s a good guy. I mean, I know he tried to—”

“It’s okay, doll. I know. Keep going.”

“So, he found out what Thanos was trying to do and when he got back they put the pieces together, but only told a few people. I came here to tell Thor about Jane disappearing and that’s when I found out what happened.”

“That’s when you met Steve?”

“Yeah,” she said. “They tried to use these time travel things to go back and make it so this never happened, but it didn’t work. Thor found Thanos, though. And Nebula… Do you know her?”

“No,” he admitted.

“She seems mean, but I think she’s a softie. Anyway, she, uh, she told them that all the souls might be in the Soul Stone. So, they went to go find it and try to free you all. I guess it worked.”

His chuckle was soft and barely there. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Guess it did.”

“It took them two weeks and two days to get you back. Thanos was very far away. I’m worried about them. What if they got hurt? What if they died? What if they’re trapped? What… What if Steve’s gone?” The last question was a whisper in the darkness of her bedroom. She hadn’t slept since they’d all reappeared, but Pepper Potts had insisted Darcy go lie down two hours ago. Darcy didn’t know how to argue with Pepper because she had a feeling Pepper always won arguments.

Bucky was silent for a long moment before saying, “You ain’t heard anything from them?”

“No,” she whispered. “Who is M’Baku?”

“He’s been ruling Wakanda in T’Challa’s absence. He fought the Outriders and Thanos with us.” Bucky paused and said, “He said Steve told him what they were doing. Said Steve told him to tell me to call you when if things went right.”

“Why?” It was a stupid question. Steve had told her to find Bucky if he succeeded at the mission.

Bucky didn’t answer right away, but Darcy could hear the soft exhalation of his breath. “Steve says you’re his girl and I should take care of you if anything happens to him.”

Her heart actually ached at the words. “His girl,” she repeated out loud, though she hadn’t intended to do so.

“You sound surprised.”

Darcy exhaled a soft laugh. “All this feels like a dream or a nightmare.”

“Does that mean you ain’t his girl?”

“No, if he says that’s what I am, then that’s what I want to be. I just… didn’t… I don’t understand how someone like him can feel that way about me.”

“You must be special,” Bucky said softly.

“He missed you so much,” she replied, blinking back tears. “He told me about you. He said I should find you if he didn’t come back.” Darcy paused and said, “Are _you_ okay?”

Bucky laughed softly. “Yeah, doll, I’m okay. Worried about him since he’s got no sense at all when it comes to picking a fight, but… I’m okay.” Silence stretched out between them for a moment before said, “We lost some people here when we all… came back, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Darcy agreed, “here too. People fell out of planes that weren’t around them any longer and down elevator shafts in this building because the elevator cart was on another floor. People got hit by cars because they were crossing the street or because they were in their car and fell right into the road when the car wasn’t there any longer. Thousands of people, probably tens of thousands around the world. I don’t know how it could have been stopped.”

“Couldn’t have. You ain’t laying the blame on yourself, are you?”

She gave a wry smiled, but he wasn’t there to see it. It was so obvious why he and Steve were friends. She felt like she already knew Bucky and they’d only spoken for a few minutes. “I just wish I could have thought about it, said something about it.”

“Doll, you can’t put the planes back in the sky like that. You didn’t know if what they were trying to do would work or not, didn’t know when it would happen.”

“I know. I just… feel bad. People died.” She sighed. “I guess I should be thankful that nobody popped into being and got cut in half by a chair that was moved in the past five months or got body melded with someone standing in their spot.” After hearing the news stories about all the other deaths, Darcy had worried about that, but it hadn’t happened. It was like the matter of the returned person was shifted slightly to accommodate if something was already occupying the space they’d been.

“You got someone there watching your back?”

She laughed softly. “Pepper Potts is, like, my new idol. If I could have a big sister, then I’d pick her, hands down. When the guys popped into existence in the lab and tried to kick me out of the building, she showed up and put her foot down. She didn’t even know me, but when she saw my security clearance… She _believed_ my story when no one else did. She’s so damn _smart_.”

“She’s Tony’s girl?”

“You and Steve and your old-timey talk.”

He chuckled.

“I think they’re engaged. She’s pregnant. God, I hope they come back. It took them sixteen days to make this happen. I guess it will take them sixteen to get back.” She paused and then said, “I’m going to go crazy waiting these next two weeks.”

“Sam, Vision, and Wanda are preparing to fly back to New York in a couple of hours. Their jet was damaged, but Shuri fixed it.”

“Who’s Shuri?”

“T’Challa’s sister. She’s a little genius. Saved me by cleaning out my head.”

“Oh, Steve told me about her, about that.”

He said, “I’ve been living here for a couple years. I ain’t exactly welcome in the States.”

“Yeah, I know. Steve told me that, too.”

He chuckled again. “Steve told us a lot. Feels like we should meet. I wasn’t going to get on the jet, but… You want me to come help in New York?”

“I can’t ask you to put yourself in danger. I’m okay.”

“You’re my best friend’s girl. He told M’Baku that I needed to get my ass there if he wasn’t around. You need me, I’m there.”

“I’m okay, Bucky,” she said. “Just worried.”

He was quiet for a few seconds before saying, “I’ll come stay with you until he gets back.”

“What if he doesn’t come back?” She managed to get the question out before her throat closed up.

“He’ll come back,” Bucky said, certainty in his voice. “He always does.”

* * *

The news coverage was insane. Now that they were three days into the return, all of the twenty-four-hour news channels were back and running nonstop. She had called her parents and then her brother immediately after she’d realized what had happened. That was right before security had threatened to boot her out of the tower, right before Pepper Potts walked into the room with her heels clicking on the tiles and realized Darcy’s badge had been given to her by Tony himself. Darcy had unloaded the full story on Pepper but only given her family the barest of details, not much more than they’d get from the news.

Jane hadn’t answered her cell until the day after Bucky had called. Cell service was spotty and so was public transit. Flights to JFK were damn near impossible to get, even if you knew someone. Pepper was eventually able to pull some strings and get Jane on a plane. The hysteria was almost as bad as it had been when everyone had disappeared. Pepper Potts was the glue holding Stark Tower and Stark Industries together in the absence of Tony Stark.

Days flew by until they were over a week into the reappearance. Tens of thousands of lives had been lost from accidents when people popped back into existence in inopportune places, but that was a drop in the bucket compared to the billions that Thanos had wiped off the face of the planet five months before. Pepper was relentless in her search for Tony and the others. She and Jane called in favors at every observatory with a radio telescope.

Laura Barton had called Lila’s cell phone while she was on the road with the other two kids. She got through on the second day and showed up at Stark Tower to move into Clint’s apartment with Lila and the other two kids on the third day. Darcy had teared up at the emotional reunion. She was glad to tap out and happily handed Lila over to her mother. Laura was just as anxious over Clint as Pepper was over Tony. Both women seemed to hold their composure better than Darcy, though. Maybe it was just practice and experience. They’d dealt with this for years. Will I even get the chance to practice, Darcy wondered.

Bucky was sleeping on Steve’s couch while Darcy took the bed. She’d worried he would be scary or intimidating. He was nothing but reassuring and comforting despite how reserved he was. He didn’t talk much, but Darcy knew he was there if she wanted to talk. He didn’t touch and seemed to avoid contact, but she couldn’t exactly blame him after what he’d been through. She didn’t need a hug to understand he was there to support her and that he missed Steve just as much.

Sam, Wanda, Vision, and Bucky were working hard to help where they could. The jet had been taking them around the globe, trying to relieve the pressure or save people who were trapped by circumstance. Darcy was surprised at how fast things were going back to normal as people returned to work. The imbalance that had been caused by half the life being ripped away was stabilizing. It all felt normal except for the hole in Darcy’s heart. Her weeks in the building with Steve and the others started to feel like a dream and that hurt almost more than anything. She didn’t want to forget any of them, but especially him. Steve’s bed sheets needed to be changed, but she couldn’t bear to let go of something that he’d touched, something they’d made love on.

Pepper placed her office phone in the cradle and looked at Darcy. “No word. You said two weeks and two days, right?”

“Right,” Darcy replied, wrapping her arms around herself and bending over. “Right.” It had been two weeks and two days between them leaving and everyone reappearing. Only nine days had passed. The same thought kept rattling around in her head—they’d succeeded, but died in the process. Or they’d succeeded and one or more of them had died. What if Steve was gone?

Pepper’s phone rang again. She picked it up and responded in short sentences before sitting up in her chair, placing her free hand on the desk. Darcy’s heart almost stopped and her stomach felt heavy. “Of course, put him through.”

“It is them?” Darcy asked, scooting to the edge of the chair. Pepper shook her head before turning her chair to the side and taking the call. If it was Steve, then Pepper would have told Darcy. She’d spilled her guts to the woman within minutes of Pepper walking into the lab and asking Darcy who she was and what she could tell her. The security guards and other staff had told Pepper that Darcy and Lila were the only ones with access to the floors that the Avengers slept on other than the janitorial staff. Pepper was a smart woman and knew Darcy had more information than anyone else in the building or on the Earth. Darcy had told her everything, even admitting to the burgeoning relationship with Steve.

“Who?” she asked Pepper again. “Is it Steve?”

Pepper shook her head and had a brief conversation with someone about satellites before hanging up. “No, it was NASA. Nothing yet. We still have a week before we should worry.” Darcy wanted to laugh because Pepper already looked worried. She’d been with Tony Stark for years. If anyone knew the pain and anxiety of loving someone who did crazy shit to save the world, it was Pepper Potts.

Darcy nodded. The little white box was in the pocket of her hoodie. She knew she couldn’t meddle with it, but it was hard to give up on the hope of a future with Steve. If he was gone, then he’d have to stay gone because changing that would mean undoing the miracle of everyone returning. Billions of lives, maybe trillions. Who knew how far the universe went and how many were killed? Taking back his sacrifice would be a betrayal.

“I was supposed to go back and tell them it didn’t work. If you—all of you—came back, then...”

“They left the technology with you?” Pepper asked.

Darcy nodded, turning the box over in her hand inside her pocket. “Yeah.”

“They told you to leave it alone,” Pepper said, her face grim. It looked like a familiar emotion to her. “They told you if we came back but they didn’t come back to leave it alone.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Yeah.”

“Are you going to?”

“Leave it alone?” Darcy asked. “Yeah, I have to. I don’t want to, but I have to. I… I feel like I’d be betraying Steve if I did any different.”

Pepper sighed and rubbed her forehead. “Let’s just… give them more time. It’s only been a little over a week.”

* * *

Sam and Bucky were standing on either side of Darcy with their arms crossed. Sometimes they made her feel like she had two big bodyguards. It made her feel silly because nothing was wrong now except for the majority of the Avengers being gone—possibly dead. Each day that thought twisted her gut a little more as the hope leaked away.

“You two look like bouncers,” she told the men at her side.

Bucky uncrossed his arms and dropped his gaze to the floor. Sam just laughed and stepped away from her, looking out the window of the lounge. “How long has it been?” he asked.

“Eleven days,” Bucky replied.

“It took them sixteen to get there,” she said, her voice sounding like it came from someone else.

Sam turned back around and threw an arm over her shoulder. “It’ll be okay. They’ll be back.”

Darcy’s body tensed. She hadn’t touched anyone with the exception of a hug from Jane since Steve. Sam seemed to sense her discomfort and removed his arm. “Sorry,” she told him.

“Hey, don’t you ever apologize,” he said, face stern.

“I miss him,” she admitted, turning around to look out the window. “Do you think they’re okay?”

Bucky stepped up over to stand next to her. “He has to be.”

She left the lounge and made her way back to Steve’s small apartment. She’d broken down and changed the sheets, but pretended like she could still smell him if she buried her face into his pillow. That was exactly what she did until she felt the exhaustion pull her down into sleep. She woke up to the sun setting, casting long shadows across the bedroom floor. It was a fall day and the clear blue sky was fading into a deeper color as the light bled away. She curled up into a ball and wondered if he was thinking of her at that very moment. If he’s alive, her brain amended.

The door to the apartment opened and she heard boots on the tile of the foyer before the door clicked shut. She closed her eyes and tried to pretend like she was asleep so she didn’t have to talk to Bucky. She’d grown to enjoy time with him and immediately saw why he and Steve got along so well. He was a good man, and she could tell he was also a loyal friend. He’s been supportive and attentive. Darcy couldn’t think of words that could express her gratitude to him and Sam, but right now she really just wanted to be alone.

“Darcy.” The voice sounded breathless and urgent.

She sat up in bed and opened her eyes. Bucky was in the doorway, his eyes wide. “What?” she asked, her stomach dropping. “Is he okay?”

“We received a transmission from a ship.”

“What ship?”

He shook his head. “It’s far and it isn’t their ship. It’s… someone we don’t know. They said they have a message. We don’t know what it means.”

Her heart was breaking. If Steve was alive, wouldn’t he send her the message? Wouldn’t it be him that called, even if it was through the light years of space? “What?” she said before her throat could close up.

“It’s from a… Ravager ship. Do you… Do you know what that is?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“They said they have a message for Darcy from Rocket.”

“ _What?_ ” she said, pushing herself out of the bed and to her feet. “What?”

“Do you know him?”

“Yes. What’s the message, Bucky?”

“Rocket said to be nice to Groot and put all your tunes on the Zune. He’ll be by to pick it up in two weeks. They’ve got to make a pitstop to pick up some more losers.”

“Wait, what? Groot?”

Bucky smiled. “I think that’s the walking, talking tree in Wakanda. They said it showed up with a….”

“Raccoon,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“Did he say anything else? Is everyone okay?”

“That’s all he said.”

“Fuck,” Darcy muttered, pacing the floor. “He would have said something if someone was hurt or dead. Right? _Right?_ ”

* * *

Thirteen days later, Darcy stood on the landing pad at the top of Stark Tower. Her personal bodyguards, Bucky and Sam, stood on either side of her and Jane. Pepper was clutching Vision’s hand. He looked and moved alarmingly like a human, even though he assured her he wasn’t really. There was a strange indentation in his forehead where Sam had told her one of the Infinity Stones had resided. Wanda was holding Clint’s youngest in her arms while Laura clutched the hands of the older two kids.

T’Challa was standing next to the strangest sight of all—a lanky tree with eyes and a mouth and a penchant for saying the word “groot” whenever anyone spoke to him. Or, she at least assumed the tree was male. She wasn’t quite sure, but it felt right. Of course, the talking raccoon would be friends with a talking tree. _Of course_. Her body was vibrating as they all waited while the door popped open with a hiss and lowered to the ground.

Clint bounded down the ramp first and wrapped Laura in a hug. Things devolved into happy chaos from there. There were people she didn’t even know walking down the ramp, greeting Wanda and Vision and Sam, hugging the tree. Darcy craned her head over the action, trying to see Steve. A sharp poke on her leg made her look down to see Rocket standing before her. “Where’s my Zune?” he asked.

Darcy reached into her pocket and pulled out the iPod with all of the songs she could find on it. “Here,” she said. “Is he okay?”

“Who? Your boyfriend? Yeah, he’s okay. Me and those losers gotta grab Groot and go. We need to go find Nebula. She went to find Gamora.” Rocket nodded his head over to a tall man with short hair and an even taller man with greyish-blue skin, both of whom were sticking around the ship and seemed anxious to leave.

“Good luck,” she told Rocket.

“Sure you don’t wanna come?” he asked.

Darcy smiled and shook her head. “No, but thanks for the offer. Come visit me?”

“Maybe. Only if you save me some more tunes.”

“Sure,” she replied. “I’ll make you some mixtapes. Tell Nebula I’ll miss her.”

He rolled his eyes. “You’d be the first. Wouldn’t be surprised if she came back for a visit after she finds her sister. She won’t shut up about that veggie korma shit. See ya around, sweetcheeks.”

Darcy smiled at him as he sauntered over to the two men who were standing next to Groot. When she looked up, Steve was standing on the ramp. Their eyes locked and Darcy’s heart shot up into her throat.

“Have these two been behaving?” Nat asked, looking from Sam and Bucky to Darcy. Steve raised a hand before shifting his eyes away to Tony who was right behind him.

“Yes,” she said. “Is it over?”

“Yes,” Nat replied. “He’s dead. We have the Stones. We just have to figure out what to do with them. We think Wanda can destroy them, so that’s probably what we’ll do.”

Darcy lunged forward and threw her arms around Nat, “I’m so glad you’re all okay.”

Nat hesitated before returning Darcy’s hug. “We missed you, too.”

Jane was weeping into Thor’s chest as he comforted her, murmuring about showing her the new Asgard in Norway. Loki looked like he was going to strain an eye muscle with how hard he was rolling his eyes. It made Darcy laugh and release Natasha.

Steve walked over and shook Sam’s hand before embracing him. He did the same with Bucky, murmuring a thank you in his friend’s ear. Darcy looked over and saw Tony kissing Pepper and a younger man--maybe a teenager--who looked like his eyes were going to pop out of his head as he looked at Groot. She’d never seen Tony look so happy. Darcy diverted her gaze back to Steve, who was standing right in front of her now. She felt awkward and nervous, unsure of where they stood now that everything was good again. Now that he didn’t need her anymore because he was out saving the world again.

“Hi,” she whispered.

“Hey, sweetheart.”

She blinked back her tears and said, “Your, uh, your beard is growing back.”

“You said you liked it. It’s for you.”

She swallowed. Did that mean he still wanted her? “I missed you,” she said.

There was laughing and talking and people moving all around her, but all Darcy could see or hear was Steve Rogers when he said, “I missed you so much more, sweetheart. Are we still… Are we good?”

She stepped forward and went up on her tiptoes to throw her arms around his neck. Steve’s arms encircled her body and pulled her flush against him as they hugged. “We’re so good,” she said. “I was worried you wouldn’t want… this after everything was fixed.”

“I’ll always want you, sweetheart. _Always_. I thought about you all the way back.” He dipped his head down and pressed his lips to hers in a sweet kiss.

* * *

It had taken too many hours for the reunited Avengers to sort through what had happened and the consequences of it. Rocket and several others, including a strange woman with antennas had left fairly soon after landing, saying they were on their way to Vormir to find Nebula and her sister, Gamora. Darcy hoped they succeeded. She hoped Nebula was okay.

The only people aware of the Stones were in the room, so they decided they had time to develop a plan to destroy them. It wasn’t even a question. Darcy had expected one or more people to suggest holding onto them for defensive purposes, but it never happened. The decision was swift and unanimous, and it was at that moment Darcy realized exactly how good each and every one of them was. There was not a hint of corruption. It made the Sokovia Accords seem petty and ill-informed, but she knew those politicians couldn’t possibly understand who these people were and how they’d each give their lives to saves others.

It was nearly eleven o’clock at night when they dropped off in pairs or groups to find a quiet place to sleep. She sat in one of the plush office chairs at the end of the conference table and watched Steve talk to Bucky and Sam in low tones. She could hear the rumble of his voice, but not his words. Sam smiled and Bucky put his flesh hand on Steve’s shoulder, squeezing it in a show of support. They exchanged a few more words before Steve turned to level his gaze on her.

They’d shared one kiss and countless looks since he’d returned, but hadn’t been alone yet. Darcy wanted to feel his arms around her shoulders. She wanted to wrap her arms tight around his waist so she could press her face into his hard chest and breath in his scent. She remained seated as he approached and smiled down at her upturned face. “You wanna go somewhere with me?” he asked under his breath.

Darcy grinned at the way he’d said it just like that day weeks ago when he’d approached her in the kitchen and asked the same thing. “Where?” she asked.

Steve’s tongue rolled out to lick his lower lip, making Darcy squeeze her thighs together. “Anywhere we can be alone.” It was exactly what he’d said that day.

“Okay,” she told him.

She followed him out of the room and down the hall, trailing not far behind with her hand in his. They didn’t end up in the ladies’ room this time, though. Instead, he guided her into the stairwell and right past the place they’d had sex the first time. His hands were on her hips as he let her ascend the stairs first. Darcy felt like she was in a trance as she considered what it was going to feel like to have him alone in his bed again.

Her fingerprint opened his door while he stood behind her, his nose buried in her hair. As soon as they were both over the threshold, Steve kicked the door shut and wrapped his arms around her right beneath her breast. She let out a gasp and breathless laugh when he lifted her off her feet and walked them into his bedroom. “Did you sleep in my bed while I was gone?” he whispered, breaking the silence.

“Yes,” she replied, one hand on his forearms locked over her ribs and the other reaching back to touch his hair.

Steve sat her down on her feet and used hands on her hips to turn her around to face him. Looking up at him in the dim room, all she could see was the curve of his nose and the pink of his lips. She got a glimpse of his blue eyes when he dipped his head to kiss her. The way Steve looked at her made Darcy’s entire body flush with warmth. It wasn’t lust, though that was undeniably there. It was a feeling of being cared for and _loved_.

She moaned as he slipped his tongue between her lips and claimed her mouth. It had been too long since she’d tasted him this way. They couldn’t exactly suck on each other’s tongues on the landing paid or in the middle of the conference room. Now that they were alone, she wanted to lock the door and not leave for days. “I’m so glad you’re back,” she whispered against his soft lips when he let up just enough to pull in a ragged breath.

“Me, too, sweetheart. Me. Too.” He punctuated the last two words with sweet, soft kisses on her lips.

Darcy moved her hands from his solid chest to his stomach and abdomen, chuckling at the way his muscles jumped under her touch. “I’ve had my hands all over you and didn’t know you were ticklish,” she teased.

Stepping back, he reached down and pulled her shirt off before moving on to work the elastic waistband of her skirt over her hips. “Not ticklish,” he said. “Want you.”

“Steve!” she squealed as he ripped her tights when he yanked them down her legs with her panties. As he went to his knees before her, Darcy placed her hands on the crown of his head to keep her balance. Steve pulled the tights and her flats off with haste and used his hands on the bend of her knees to topple her backward onto the mattress.

She looked down her body in time to see him crawl forward and use his grip on her thighs to pull her ass to the edge of the mattress. “Mmm, you smell so good,” he whispered. Darcy parted her lips to reply, but all that came out was a moan when he shifted on his knees and latched his hot mouth onto her pussy. His wide shoulders kept her legs parted and her sex exposed to him. She wondered if she’d ever get used to the voracious way Steve Rogers devoured her.

Her pussy throbbed as he eased two fingers inside her and flicked his tongue over her clit like a pulse. The way he worked her was slow and deliberate and overwhelming. “Steve, please. I want you inside me.”

His fingers curled when he said, “I _am_ inside you.”

“You know what I mean,” Darcy whined. “Your cock.”

His deep chuckle was sexy, almost like a growl. He withdrew his fingers and lifted up enough that she could see him lick them clean when she looked down her body. His tongue swirled over them before he slipped his middle finger and forefinger between his lips and sucked on them until his cheeks hollowed.

“Oh, fuck,” she groaned, trying to close her legs to get some friction.

He blocked her by leaning his shoulder between her knees. “Nuh uh, sweetheart. Keep ‘em spread for me.”

“Please, please, please. Steeeeeeve,” she begged, lifting her hips up, trying to entice him.

He pushed himself to his feet and undressed quickly. His belt went first, then the form-fitting and light armor that went over his Under Armour shirt. The pants fell to the ground and he kicked them off as soon as he’d toed off the boots. “Soon, sweetheart. So soon,” he promised, pulling off his socks and undershirt. The outline of his cock was visible beneath the thin fabric of his boxers. It looked absolutely filthy and sexy and delicious.

Darcy lifted up her hips again as Steve pushed the last piece of clothing down his legs. He leaned over her, hands on her waist so he could grab her and toss her up into the middle of the bed. Darcy squealed again when she bounced on the mattress. He immediately dropped down on top of her, wedging his hips between her thighs. The weight of his body was equal parts electric and comforting. It had been over a month since they’d made love in his bed like this and she was more than ready for him.

His mouth was all over—on her jaw, her neck, her chest, even dipping down to suck one of her nipples between his lips. Darcy growled and bucked her hips up, impatiently reminding him of what she’d been begging for.

“Alright, alright,” he told her with a breathless laugh. “Anything you want, Darcy.” Her eyes fluttered closed at the husky sound of his voice in her ear as he shifted and worked a hand between their bodies to guide the tip of his cock between her slick pussy lips. All it took from there was a lift of her hips and a thrust of his to fill her up completely.

“Steve!” she gasped, arching herself up into his body. “Oh, _fuck_...”

“Yeah,” he agreed, snapping his hips back and forth, pulling over halfway out of her before sliding right back inside until there was nothing left but his pubic bone pressed tight against hers. “Feels so fuckin’ good,” Steve growled in her ear. “You like that?”

“Yes, yes, yes, yes…” she mumbled over and over again.

“Been too long. I’m gonna come so hard for you, deep inside you.” His voice was breathless hot against her neck and face.

“Please, Steve. _Please_. I want you to. Need you. Love you.” Darcy’s filter was gone and the words banging around in her head just tumbled right over her lips and into the thick air between them.

“Love you so much, sweetheart. You feel so perfect wrapped around my cock. Need you to come for me so I can fill you up. Can you do that for me?” The sweet, filthy words he whispered in her ear combined with the drag of his thick cock as he pushed into her willing body nudged her right to the edge of orgasm.

Steve put mouth over her ear, sucking on her fleshy lobe before saying, “Let me feel you come all over my cock.” The way he enunciated the hard K at the end tightened the muscles in her abdomen. He finished her off with a powerful thrust into her and then a rocking motion that gave her the friction she needed to come, calling out his name.

He was close behind, his movements sliding from smooth to frantic within a couple seconds. Steve grunted in her ear as his cock jerked inside her. Darcy wrapped her legs tighter around his waist and her arms around his neck as he came down from his orgasm.

“Fuck, sweetheart,” he whispered, kissing her neck and jaw. Steve moved his mouth up to her chin and then laid a lingering, sweet kiss on her lips.

“Thank you for saving the universe,” she whispered against his mouth when he pulled back to take a breath.

He laughed. “I barely did anything. Thank you for....”

When he didn’t finish his sentence, she grabbed a fist of his hair and said, “For what?”

He smiled. “For everything. For you.”

“I believe you just thanked me without words,” Darcy teased.

Steve chuckled again. “Oh? Is that what this is called?”

“Among other things.”

“Thought it was called making love to my girl,” he whispered, blue eyes watching her from only a few inches away, his body still a warm and comforting weight between her legs.

Her heart was beating double time and it had nothing to do with the fact that he was still inside of her and everything to do with the sincerity in his eyes. “I didn’t know you were such a romantic, considering how we started out.”

Steve kissed her softly and said, “I’m going to spend the rest of my time making up for every night I should have stayed with you instead of leaving, and that includes the first night in the stairwell.”

Darcy felt giddy. “I could be persuaded to participant in a redo.”

“Redo?”

“Sex in the stairwell, but this time we do it right and go home together.”

Steve groaned and buried his face against her neck as his dick twitched inside her. “Deal. A redo it is.”

 

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who was kind enough to read and comment and support my writing. I hope you all enjoyed this tale. Thank you to ChocolateGate and Bulmaveg Otaku for their amazing beta skills and willingness to listen to me talk through ideas/plot/characterization.
> 
> The last three months of the year tend to be very hectic for me. I work in finance and many things come to a head at year-end, making my work life difficult and stressful. To keep my sanity and recharge my creative batteries, I'll be taking a break from writing until January/February. I'm sure I'll be working on new projects, but not until 2018 has been put to bed. I hope to see all of you in 2019 when I'm ready to return with something new.
> 
> If you'd like to keep up with me, I can be found on Tumblr under the name anogete. I usually post messages about my new projects and the progress I'm making. I'll also provide sneak peeks as I hit word count milestones. If Tumblr isn't your thing, you are welcome to email me (anogete527@yahoo.com). I love messages from readers. <3
> 
> Finally, I'm doing a reader appreciation giveaway. You can [GO HERE](https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/7NM83ZT) for more details and provide your info to enter the giveaway. I have MCU-related jewelry or a custom hand-knit hat to send out to ten people who take some time to answer four questions.
> 
> See you in a few months! Thank you for being wonderful and supporting my shit.


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